Readers Guide for Strangers in the Villa

Bianca and Damian learn that the parts needed for their van will take a week to ten days to arrive. Syd and Curtis offer them a place to park the van and shower. But gradually, Damian and Bianca are eating meals with Curtis and Syd. Damian also helps Curtis with renovation projects.

Curtis has a burner phone that he sneaks off to use, but it’s unclear who he is calling. Meanwhile, Syd stalks the social media of Colette, the woman Curtis cheated with.

Curtis starts to feel uncomfortable with the newcomers, but Syd enjoys the distraction.

There’s a bunch of weirdness: flirting between Damian and Syd and also Bianca and Syd. A machete that appears on the grounds and then disappears. Eventually she comes to agree with him and Curtis asks Damian and Bianca to leave and find a place to stay in town.

Damian says no … without an Australian accent.

Damian and Bianca POV

We learn about Damian and Bianca’s background, which doesn’t do much to forward the plot. The important thing is that Bianca has a beloved half-sister, Lyric.

Damian also reveals what he and Bianca are up to: blackmailing Curtis for $5 million. Apparently they have a video of Curtis with a woman he killed. Curtis accepts this readily, which is weird. He REALLY doesn’t want Syd to see the video.

Bianca’s sister Lyric had left the Midwest and was working as a server in an upscale restaurant. Bianca went to visit her and found that Lyric quit that job and was serving as some kind of party hostess. After Lyric disappears briefly, she is dumped on the sidewalk in front of her apartment. Bianca takes her back home. She later dies of an overdose.

Syd learns that “Collette” doesn’t exist.

Meanwhile, Curtis uses the burner phone to call some mysterious guy named West and beg for money. West says you can’t pay blackmailers; you need to get rid of them.

Syd decides to spy on Damian and Bianca. She finds their passports and evidence that they sabotaged the van themselves.

Curtis says he will have the money soon. Bianca wants it divided between them.

Curtis and Sydney

Curtis is cooking up a goodbye dinner: beef stroganoff. Bianca reflects that Syd is onto them and that Curtis is awfully cheerful for someone being blackmailed. She and Damian are suddenly doubled over in pain. 

Syd asks Curtis what he did. She has miraculously fixed the (broken) security system and was spying on everyone.

We finally find out what Curtis did

Curtis went to West’s party and took drugs. Lyric was hostessing. Curtis claims he kept Lyric safe, but is shown a video that shows he slept with Lyric, who was seventeen but trafficked.

Syd tells Curtis she will expose him or he can eat Bianca’s leftover stroganoff. She then tells Bianca to get to a hospital. Syd vows to take the entire trafficking ring down!

Epilogue: Sydney

Syd is living in France. She likes it there because she can smoke (she was sneaking cigarettes the entire time).

She wonders what happened to Bianca. Curtis died and because Damien was larger, he survived, but has permanent organ damage.

Syd anonymously reports all the details of West and his trafficking.  She reads in the paper that Simon is dead.

If you have questions or comments please leave them in comment section below!

My thoughts: When I see this in writing, it’s a little hard to take it all seriously, but that can happen with psychological supsense and big twist books.

As soon as Curtis was cooking mushrooms, I KNEW that he was poisoning them, as I listened to a podcast about Erin Patterson, who poisoned her ex-husband’s family, killing three people and seriously injuring a fourth.