A remote island in the South Pacific plays host to a dozen strangers. One of them is a murderer.
An advertisement in a newspaper brings a disparate group of people to a tropical paradise. They will live together for a year, work and build a community, and film everything that happens for a documentary that will only see the light of day at the end of the trip.
Almost at once, things begin to go wrong.
They are meant to be strangers, but some of them have met before. They are meant to receive regular visits by the company funding the documentary, but nobody ever comes.
And their only link with the outside world - a small portable radio transmitter - is incapable of transmitting anything...
✼
When I got my Kindle, I spent quite a while downloading some free e-books, and ended up with a lot to read. From my experiences with free downloads, some have been really enjoyable, and some have been quite disappointing. When I came to read this one, I wasn't sure what to expect. I had seen a review that compared the story to Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None, which immediately grabbed my attention. I just hoped it would live up to my expectations.
I started reading, and found myself pleasantly surprised. It was easy to read, and an interesting idea. There are so many characters in this book that I thought I'd never be able to follow them all, but it turned into a really easy story to get into. It was fast-paced, with a whole host of interesting characters to follow, as well as some intriguing mysteries right from the off. I finished it very quickly, and did not predict what was to come! A great read.
Rating: ✫✫✫✫
SPOILER ALERT
The Story
Where to begin. There are so many things to say about this story that I should probably try and organise my thoughts before I put them down on paper!
I did initially struggle with the sheer volume of characters that were introduced very closely together. I appreciate that in a story like this, it's necessary to have a lot of strong characters, but the book was also quite short, so they were introduced in quick succession. I did wonder if I would ever get to grips with who they all were. However, I surprised myself by being able to distinguish them all fairly well quite soon into the story. It's surely a testament to how easy the story is to read that I found myself able to do this. That was helped by the fact that there was a good amount of setting the scene during the first few chapters that was really beneficial. The idea behind the experiment, the filming that was expected to be done, and the producer who left them on the island and never returned - these background details bulked out the story and it made it a lot easier to follow the events and characters. It does take a little while to get to the first death because the build up is done so well, but I think that the timing was actually perfect. However, after that first death, things unravel fairly rapidly...
If I was to provide one criticism about this book (and I do it reluctantly), it would be that there needed to be more depth in the middle. There is a really well constructed build-up to Duncan's death that sets the tone of the story, and I wish that had been continued throughout the rest of the narrative. The pace of the story held momentum, and so the plot didn't suffer too heavily. However, continuing the earlier level of detail, and even adding in a couple of additional scenes to slow the pace of the plot down a little would have really helped. Nonetheless, that momentum did carry through and I enjoyed it from beginning to end.
I'll hold my hands up and say that I thought I knew who the culprit was, and I got it totally wrong! I was convinced Steve was responsible. There was just so much emphasis on him throughout the story, on his natural leadership and the way he looked out for others - I was convinced that was a ruse! He's a likeable character, so I was fully prepared for it to be a shock at the end that he was the murderer. It's a classic method! Turns out, I was entirely wrong. When it was revealed that Sue was protecting somebody, I grew even more convinced, as Steve was the one person who had made sure to look out for Sue at the very beginning. But the passages of Sue's interactions with the unknown murderer were written in a very different voice to the one that was used for Steve. Which made me stop and wonder; who would Sue protect? Certainly not Chris. Only one of the girls.
The climax of the story happened very quickly, and with no time to so much as take your eyes off the page. It actually felt to me to be a little rushed. The beginning was so carefully laid out, the middle a little less so, but the ending just raced through. I understand the need to keep up a fast pace to maintain intrigue at the end of a murder mystery, just as the story is unravelling, but I just wanted it to stop so I could enjoy it more. If the pace had slowed, even just ever so slightly, it would have made the ending so much more satisfying to the reader.
I did, however, appreciate the solution to the mystery. I didn't ever expect it to be Isabel who was responsible; my secondary suspect was definitely Stephanie. But it made sense with everything that had happened. Isabel had accidentally poisoned Jane, and had felt so guilty she had nearly taken her own life. Then she had witnessed more goings on and decided that she needed to carry on with her mission. I also liked the premise that Isabel only killed predators, and every person she had murdered had been, in their own way, preying on somebody else. But I don't understand why she chose to bring victims to the island to suffer unnecessarily. How did she choose them? Why did she bring them? Some more explanation into that would have been helpful. It was a good thought, but it needed more defining for it to be a really strong conclusion of the book.
The Verdict
Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It was very like Christie's And Then There Were None, with people getting killed off left, right and centre, and an atmosphere of fear on the island. It also reminded me very much of the television series Harper's Island from several years ago, and I couldn't help but think that it would make a great show to watch. I love those kinds of thrillers, so I knew I'd love this book from the very start.
It was very dynamic, very bold, and very exciting to read. It was also fast-paced, which does really help when it comes to reading murder mysteries. But, dare I say it, it was too fast-paced. It started off so well, with just the right amount of background and context for the scene to be fully set. But that evaporated quickly and it was almost as if the author was in a rush to get the story out. If the same attention had been paid to the middle of the book, and the end, it would have felt a lot deeper and more powerful.
That being said, I really thoroughly enjoyed this book. It was definitely worth taking a chance on the free download.
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