Good Rich People

The novel opens with Lyla Herschel standing over a blood-filled fountain in the courtyard of her home, calling a repairman to drain it. She deflects his suspicions about the source of the blood, establishing an atmosphere of concealed violence. This scene, which frames the entire narrative, is not explained until the final chapters.

Lyla lives with her husband, Graham, in a modern glass house built on the edge of a cliff in the Hollywood Hills. Above them, in a castle-like estate, lives Graham's mother, Margo, whose vast fortune binds them to her. Below the glass house, built into the hillside, sits a hidden guesthouse. For years, Margo and Graham have used it to play a cruel game: They invite ambitious, self-made tenants to live there, befriend them, and then systematically destroy their lives.

Graham informs Lyla that a new tenant is moving in and that it is her turn to play. The family blames Lyla for what happened with the previous tenant, a woman named Elvira whom Lyla befriended against the rules. Elvira was found dead in the fountain with slit wrists, an apparent suicide. Margo blamed Lyla for interfering, and Lyla has carried the guilt ever since. Now, to prove her loyalty and secure her place in the family, she must target the new tenant: Demi Golding, a high-earning director. Lyla suspects Margo chose someone this accomplished to ensure Lyla fails.

The narrative shifts to an unnamed woman living on the streets of Los Angeles. Raised by her father after her mother died in childbirth, she grew up in poverty, understanding from a young age that the world treats poor people as invisible. After years of minimum-wage jobs and living in other people's homes without ever having her name on a lease, she finds herself homeless, walking endlessly through the city to avoid accepting it. She falls ill and takes shelter in an empty tent at a camp beneath the 101 freeway, where a tall, charismatic fellow resident named Michael directs her to a spot. She wakes in the tent and, for the first time, acknowledges her homelessness.

One night, the unnamed woman encounters the real Demi Golding stumbling through the tent city, drunk and looking for drugs. Demi buys heroin from Michael, vomits on the unnamed woman's shoes, and invites her inside the guesthouse for a drink. The unnamed woman accepts, wanting to see a rich person's house up close. Inside, Demi goes into the bathroom and never comes out. The unnamed woman knocks repeatedly, gets no response, and eventually falls asleep in a wicker swing. The next morning, she breaks down the bathroom door with a heavy marble statue and finds Demi's body on the floor, apparently dead from a drug overdose.

Panicking, the unnamed woman tries to leave, but Lyla emerges from the house above and mistakes her for the new tenant. In that moment, the unnamed woman realizes no one knows the real Demi. She decides to stay just one night, using the shower, eating the food, and wearing the clothes. That single night stretches into an ongoing deception. She e-mails Demi's employer claiming Demi has entered rehab, contacts Demi's one friend with a similar story, and changes all passwords. No one pushes back.

Michael, who followed the unnamed woman home, discovers the body. He checks Demi's pulse and declares she is not dead but brain-dead, then snaps her neck, killing her and framing the act as helping the unnamed woman secure the life she has taken. Together, they remove Demi's hands, feet, and teeth to prevent identification. The unnamed woman drives the body to the tent city, places it in her own tent with her personal ID, and sets it on fire so the remains will be identified as her rather than as Demi. She disposes of the remaining body parts by burying them under rocks in the reservoir.

Michael moves into the guesthouse as an unwanted squatter, spending his days using heroin and watching movies. They pawn Demi's possessions and split the money. The unnamed woman resents his presence but needs him as an accomplice and fears him as a witness.

Meanwhile, Lyla struggles to engage the woman she believes is Demi. The imposter is evasive and fearful, refusing personal questions and avoiding Lyla's overtures. Strange events pile up around the property: the front gate is broken off its hinges, a mysterious white van with blacked-out windows appears on the street, and Michael is spotted in the courtyard. Lyla attempts to set up "Demi" for trespassing at the reservoir but is arrested herself when security catches her carrying wire cutters. Graham, aroused by the story of her arrest, has sex with Lyla for the first time in nearly a year.

Pressure mounts from all sides. At a dinner in Margo's hell-themed garden, Margo tells Lyla she is going to lose. That same night, a drunk Graham confesses that he killed Elvira out of boredom and that he and Margo made Lyla believe it was her fault as a psychological tactic. Devastated, Lyla resolves to kill "Demi" at Graham's upcoming birthday party, loading a single real bullet among the Simunition rounds—nonlethal training ammunition that explodes on impact in a burst of gold dust—she has prepared for the event.

On a parallel track, Graham discovers the bag of body parts that Lyla's housekeeper, Astrid, had unknowingly carried to the curb. At a strip club during his birthday drinks, he confronts the imposter. She confesses everything, and rather than being horrified, Graham is enthralled. He promises to help but with a condition: She must win the birthday game, or he turns the evidence over to police.

Separately, Lyla discovers that Astrid is actually Elvira's sister, who came to investigate Elvira's death and has been living in the white van, spying on the family. Astrid reveals that Michael broke the gate and killed Margo's dog, Bean, when the dog discovered him in the garden. Lyla writes Astrid a check and warns her to leave.

Graham's birthday party unfolds at Margo's estate as an elaborate shooting game, with guests wielding real guns loaded with Simunition across the mansion and gardens. The game descends into chaos. Lyla hides in the off-limits west wing with her real bullet, considering whether to shoot Graham or "Demi," but a guest named Posey catches her and eliminates her from the game. The imposter steals Lyla's gun from a table, not knowing it contains the real bullet.

In the garden, Michael appears among stolen jewelry. The imposter fires at a figure rising from the bushes. The bullet is real. Michael dies. Graham arrives, wipes the gun, calls the police, and frames Lyla for the killing. Lyla is arrested and taken away in the rain.

Three months later, the unnamed woman lives in the glass house with Graham but discovers the true depth of his cruelty. He takes her on what he calls a golf trip, which turns out to be driving into poor neighborhoods to terrorize vulnerable people. When a little girl approaches the car and Graham reaches for his golf clubs, the imposter lunges across him and drives them away. She realizes his predation targets the poor, the people she once was, and resolves to kill him.

She visits Lyla in prison, where Lyla asks her to prevent Graham from having Lyla committed. Returning home, the imposter makes Graham dinner and poisons his champagne with oleander and other toxic flowers from Margo's gardens. Graham collapses by the fountain, coughing blood into the water. He asks her to tell him her stories as he dies. She stays with him until the end.

The novel circles back to its opening scene: Lyla, now released from prison, stands over the blood-filled fountain and has the repairman drain it. A new tenant appears at the top of the stairs. Lyla greets her warmly. The novel closes with Lyla facing the new tenant and asking, "What do we want?" leaving open the question of whether the cycle will repeat or finally break.