Chances are no one will survive this killer celebration.
Inspired by Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None, this twisty tale unspools what happens when a gathering of old friends devolves into a killing spree.
All the guests invited to a party to meet Will Mayer’s fiancee know they shouldn't attend, but as often happens in locked-door mysteries and horror novels, they just can't stay away. Will and fellow Bowdoin College graduates Alex and Cassandra Greene and Mitch Andersen share secrets about the deaths 12 years before of two fellow students, and the weight of those secrets has killed something inside them. Metaphorically, they're rotting from the inside out. On graduation weekend, more than a decade before, Emily Hunt was found dead. At first, the police and friends, as well as people who never knew her, blamed her because she'd been drinking and had a reputation for liking sex. But someone spread rumors that she was murdered by Brendan Clarke, another student, and not long after Emily's death, he was found dead too. Now, this reunion, set on an island in Maine, will blow up all the rumors and well-kept secrets, and everyone's life is on the line. Countless writers have employed the trapped-on-a-deserted-island setup, and this story could easily drown in a sea of clichés. But Kane methodically builds this plot-driven thriller through each character's perspective, then lets us watch as nearly all of them fall on the swords of their coverups. Tropes abound—isolated location, an approaching storm, and a plethora of unreliable narrators—but Kane still manages to keep the plot spinning in tornadic fashion. Mixing a classic plot device with the dangers inherent in victim-blaming and the damage amateur sleuths can cause through misuse of social media give Kane's novel a modern twist.
Chances are no one will survive this killer celebration.Pub Date: Dec. 5, 2023
ISBN: 9780063225626
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Sept. 22, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2023
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.
A woman accused of shooting her husband six times in the face refuses to speak.
"Alicia Berenson was thirty-three years old when she killed her husband. They had been married for seven years. They were both artists—Alicia was a painter, and Gabriel was a well-known fashion photographer." Michaelides' debut is narrated in the voice of psychotherapist Theo Faber, who applies for a job at the institution where Alicia is incarcerated because he's fascinated with her case and believes he will be able to get her to talk. The narration of the increasingly unrealistic events that follow is interwoven with excerpts from Alicia's diary. Ah, yes, the old interwoven diary trick. When you read Alicia's diary you'll conclude the woman could well have been a novelist instead of a painter because it contains page after page of detailed dialogue, scenes, and conversations quite unlike those in any journal you've ever seen. " 'What's the matter?' 'I can't talk about it on the phone, I need to see you.' 'It's just—I'm not sure I can make it up to Cambridge at the minute.' 'I'll come to you. This afternoon. Okay?' Something in Paul's voice made me agree without thinking about it. He sounded desperate. 'Okay. Are you sure you can't tell me about it now?' 'I'll see you later.' Paul hung up." Wouldn't all this appear in a diary as "Paul wouldn't tell me what was wrong"? An even more improbable entry is the one that pins the tail on the killer. While much of the book is clumsy, contrived, and silly, it is while reading passages of the diary that one may actually find oneself laughing out loud.
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-30169-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A weird, wild ride.
Celebrity scandal and a haunted lake drive the narrative in this bestselling author’s latest serving of subtly ironic suspense.
Sager’s debut, Final Girls (2017), was fun and beautifully crafted. His most recent novels—Home Before Dark (2020) and Survive the Night (2021) —have been fun and a bit rickety. His new novel fits that mold. Narrator Casey Fletcher grew up watching her mother dazzle audiences, and then she became an actor herself. While she never achieves the “America’s sweetheart” status her mother enjoyed, Casey makes a career out of bit parts in movies and on TV and meatier parts onstage. Then the death of her husband sends her into an alcoholic spiral that ends with her getting fired from a Broadway play. When paparazzi document her substance abuse, her mother exiles her to the family retreat in Vermont. Casey has a dry, droll perspective that persists until circumstances overwhelm her, and if you’re getting a Carrie Fisher vibe from Casey Fletcher, that is almost certainly not an accident. Once in Vermont, she passes the time drinking bourbon and watching the former supermodel and the tech mogul who live across the lake through a pair of binoculars. Casey befriends Katherine Royce after rescuing her when she almost drowns and soon concludes that all is not well in Katherine and Tom’s marriage. Then Katherine disappears….It would be unfair to say too much about what happens next, but creepy coincidences start piling up, and eventually, Casey has to face the possibility that maybe some of the eerie legends about Lake Greene might have some truth to them. Sager certainly delivers a lot of twists, and he ventures into what is, for him, new territory. Are there some things that don’t quite add up at the end? Maybe, but asking that question does nothing but spoil a highly entertaining read.
A weird, wild ride.Pub Date: June 21, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-593-18319-9
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: March 29, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2022
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