"When renowned anonymous author J. R. Alastor hires former aspiring writer Mila del Angél to host a writing retreat at his private manor off the coast of Maine, she jumps at the chance—particularly since she has an ax to grind with one of the invitees. The guest list? Six thriller authors, all masters of deceit, misdirection, and mayhem. Confess the crimes, survive the tropes. Alastor and Mila have masterminded a week of games, trope-fueled riddles, and maybe a jump scare or two—the perfect cover for Mila to plot a murder of her own. But when a guest turns up dead—and it’s not the murder she planned—Mila finds herself trapped in a different narrative altogether. One by one, you’ll lose your turn. With a storm cutting off the island, and the body count rising, Mila must outwit a killer who knows literally every trick in the book."
This is one of those books where if the above premise interests you at all - just go and read it. I had such a fun time with this isolated, closed circle mystery and fully recommend it to anyone who enjoys those tropes. We open with the characters already on their way to the island for the writing retreat so we waste absolutely no time in getting right into the meat of the story. The bodies start dropping early and often and there are a good amount of twists and red herrings to keep things interesting. I absolutely loved this debut and look forward to reading more from Pliego in the future.
Just like with any mystery, there are always going to be some readers who can guess every twist seemingly from the beginning. I'm not generally a reader who makes a point to guess along the way and am happy to be reading along and seeing where the story takes me. The one mystery I was keen to try and sort out was who Alastor was and I did sort of guess it a few chapters before we get the reveal. I loved that there was an added mystery that came in about half way through the read that injected the plot with a little more urgency and I think would have re-intrigued any readers who were getting a little sick of the deaths we were getting until that point.
The game elements were fantastic and I wanted more of them. Each of these characters have a secret that they don't know Alastor knows. Instead, their secrets are hinted at through various party games that give just enough information for the particular character to know what Alastor is alluding to but they aren't super obvious when the other characters see. There is a Clue-like game where they have to match up the name, occupation, and secret of each character and I found that especially well done because the secrets were vague enough that numerous people could claim the same one for different reasons pretty easily which lead to more interpersonal tension as alliances start coming together.
The character work in this read was fantastic. I felt like each character was distinct and easy for me to keep straight. We get POV chapters of multiple characters, but not consistently through the read. The first time a new POV popped up, I was a little annoyed because I was settled into the POV we started with. However, I ended up really liking this choice because a POV change always happened at just the right moment to propel the plot forward or give the reader some insight into a character that was more on the sidelines but will become more prominent soon. This also eliminates the 'plot armor' of only having one or two POVs and then knowing those characters will most likely make it out alive. In this story, you can't tell by POV only who, if anyone, will make it out alive.
The ending wrapped things up a little too much for my personal tastes. With this much murder and mayhem, I didn't expect everything to connect so perfectly by the end. It didn't necessarily detract from the rest of the story, but I did find myself reacting in a sort of "yeah, alright, I guess..." kind of way. I loved the way the situation on the island wrapped up but the final chapters that acted as a sort of flashforward/epilogue didn't feel realistic enough given what we now know about these characters and the situation overall.
Overall, this was exactly what I wanted out of an isolated mystery - great characters, interesting mystery plot, and lots of death. The resolution to the ending fell a little flat for me, but everything up until that very last bit was fantastic.
