Disclosure / Disclaimer: I received this ebook, free of charge, from Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage, and Anchor, via #netgalley, for review purposes on this blog. No other compensation, monetary or in kind, has been received or implied for this post. Nor was I told how to post about it. All opinions are my own.
LOOKING FOR AN ANYTHING-BUT-ORDINARY WHODUNIT?
Synopsis:
Welcome to the West Heart country club. Where the drinks are neat but behind closed doors . . . things can get messy. Where upright citizens are deemed downright boring. Where the only missing piece of the puzzle is you, dear reader.
A unique and irresistible murder mystery set at a remote hunting lodge where everyone is a suspect, including the erratic detective on the scene—a remarkable debut that gleefully upends the rules of the genre.
An isolated hunt club. A raging storm. Three corpses, discovered within four days. A cast of monied, scheming, unfaithful characters.
When private detective Adam McAnnis joins an old college friend for the Bicentennial weekend at the exclusive West Heart club in upstate New York, he finds himself among a set of not-entirely-friendly strangers. Then the body of one of the members is found at the lake’s edge; hours later, a major storm hits. By the time power is restored on Sunday, two more people will be dead . . .
Review:
Sometimes you just start a book and KNOW it's not one you actually want to read, no matter how great the synopsis and attention grabbing quotes were about it. BUT, because you are a reviewer, it give it more time and try to get thru the book. This is definitely a love it of really hate it book. I'm on the latter- sounding 100%. By the 3rd chapter the author constantly telling me (the reader) what he was doing and how I was supposed to be thinking went from irksome to annoying to aggravating and cliched by the 6th chapter. I have been reading mysteries for over 40 years. I can tell you exactly what goes into making a successful closed room mystery (this isn't it by the way), I don't need a pretentious character in the author's voice telling me. Then you can't even get to the solution because, wait for it, now there is a PLAY with all the characters and you, the reader, are part of it and have LINES to act out....Yes, the last fourth of the book is spent to the inane idea of now that we've aggravated the reader, let's make them throw the book by inserting a play.....Not sure who approved this one without serious editing, but it needs a rethink and quickly. I have not given a one star review in years, but it's time again...avoid this one if you love mysteries.
About the Author:
DANN McDORMAN is an Emmy-nominated TV news producer, who has also worked as a newspaper reporter, book reviewer, and cabinet maker. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife and two children.
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