West Heart Kill by Dann McDorman

West Heart Kill by Dann McDorman
UK Publication: October 2023
Reviewed by: Book Worm
Rating: [★★★]

This ARC was provided by Bloomsbury Publishing PLC UK (via NetGalley) in exchange for an honest review.

Socialising can be murder…

Synopsis from Goodreads: LOOKING FOR AN ANYTHING-BUT-ORDINARY WHODUNIT? 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.

My Thoughts: Well this was a doozy of a book and I have to say I feel I lack the mental power for working out whodunits in general and this one specifically.

This is the most unique murder mystery I have ever read so it definitely gets kudos for that. The narrative switches between several distinct techniques including having the characters act as a Greek Chorus of We; sections where the author interposes to give the reader detailed history of the crime genre, the locked room mystery, insights into detective writers and suppositions about other fictional crime works (these were my favourites) and finally sections where the Reader is introduced as a character cross examining the other characters. If this all sounds very Meta it really is.

I confess I couldn’t work out who the murderer was and the way the book ends may well be frustrating for readers who know how the genre normally works.

Who would like this? If you enjoy murder mysteries, have an interest in the history of the genre and like pitting your wits against an author who is trying to hide the crimes in plain sight I think this book will definitely give you a run for your money.

Anyone who reads this and can work out Whodunit please let me know how you did it.

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