It is impossible to discuss If We Were Villains without mentioning Donna Tartt’s The Secret History . Both feature a tight-knit group of elite students, an isolated campus, and a "whydunnit" structure. However, while Tartt focuses on the cold, intellectual detachment of Classics students, Rio focuses on the raw, explosive emotionality of theater students. If We Were Villains feels more visceral—it is a book that breathes, bleeds, and takes a final bow. The Legacy of the Ending
If you’ve ever wondered what would happen if The Secret History traded its Greek for iambic pentameter and its Vermont snow for Lake Michigan fog, If We Were Villains is your answer. M.L. Rio’s debut is a love letter to the stage, a murder mystery, and a devastating character study—all rolled into one gorgeously melancholic package.
The story follows Oliver Marks, who has just finished serving a ten-year prison sentence. Upon his release, he is met by Detective Colborne, the man who put him away. Colborne is retiring and wants the one thing he never got: the truth about what actually happened a decade ago at Dellecher Classical Conservatory. If We Were Villains
...then If We Were Villains is not just worth reading; it is essential reading.
The group is defined by specific archetypes they play both on and off stage: It is impossible to discuss If We Were
When Richard turns up dead in the lake after a violent rehearsal of Julius Caesar (where he is stabbed to death on stage every night), the line is erased entirely. Did James push him? Did Oliver? Was it an accident? Or did the spirit of the play possess them?
The genius of Rio’s characterization is how these roles begin as stereotypes, only to be slowly deconstructed as the pressure mounts. We think we know who the villain is—Richard, with his violent outbursts and manipulation—but the novel’s central thesis is that villainy is a matter of perspective. As the title suggests, the line between hero and villain is as flimsy as the fourth wall on a stage. If We Were Villains feels more visceral—it is
However, Rio diverges in a crucial way. The Secret History is a novel about aesthetics —about beauty so pure it corrupts. If We Were Villains is a novel about language . Tartt’s characters kill because they are bored. Rio’s characters kill because they have forgotten the difference between "to be" and "not to be."
For the uninitiated, the fear of reading If We Were Villains is often the Shakespeare. Do you need a Folio guide to understand it? No. Rio is a genius of contextual integration. The characters speak in modern English, but when emotion peaks—rage, lust, grief, betrayal—the dialogue snaps into perfect iambic pentameter. It feels organic, as natural to these characters as breathing.