West Heart Kill - Dann McDorman

Mystery & Suspense

Rating: 8/10

The Hunt meets Knives Out…need I say more?

The books I have read in my life number in the thousands, and never have I come across one like this. A thoroughly original suspense novel that turns the genre on its head in every imaginable way.

Set at an isolated and elite hunting club during a raging storm, the reader finds themselves awash in corpses. Alongside a doozy of a suspect list, rife with privileged and scheming characters.

Private investigator Adam has tagged along with an old college friend for the weekend under the guise of catching up on old times. The truth is that someone there that weekend has hired him. Who and why remain a mystery far into the book.

Written in first, second and third person, shifting narrative voices with no discernable pattern, this book demanded that the synapses were firing at the turn of every page. I will say that this book risks teetering on the edge of being too clever for its own good.

The author offers a ton of tidbits about mysteries and writing, my favourite…

“The writer of murder, like all writers, must be a miser, conceding revelations bit by bit; for every novel is a puzzle, every writer a murderer, and every reader a sleuth.”

Footnote: the author peppers all kinds of curious factoids about the genre and its authors throughout this novel.

Book Pairing(s): Eight Detectives by Alex Pavesi, Close To Death by Anthony Horowitz, Seven Deaths Of Evelyn Hardcastle