Review: Modern day "Clue" with a twist
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 05 21, 2014
I've read a lot of horror, but this was somehow the most creepy/tense book I've read in a while. It becomes clearer and clearer as you read that no one is safe, which amps up the tension. I can almost always figure out where a story is going, but there were so many things to figure out from the "whodunit" standpoint that the big reveal completely surprised me...then made me go, "Wait a minute. How?"...THEN the gigantic twist completely surprised me and added a whole new crazy layer. (I would've hated to have the ending ruined for me, so I won't give anything away. I will say that the ending SEEMS like a cop-out, but then it opens up a whole new horrifying angle and works really, really well.)My first impression as I was reading was that this would make an interesting play. It's set up very much like "Clue" where we're introduced to many characters, the stage is set, and then people start getting bumped off one by one. At first, the character descriptions were a bit much all at once. And there are a LOT of characters to immediately try to keep straight. But as the story moves along and you figure out who's who, it adds to the complicated mystery element as you try to sort out these people and who would be capable of what.I DID question why these people would show up in the first place, considering almost no one wants to be at this reunion. They all seem to at least mildly despise each other. But there are interesting psychological elements to this story - how different people react to dangerous situations, how far can people be pushed, what would it take for a person to snap, etc. Again, the ending twist explains and writes off a lot of the little things that don't quite seem to work in the story, which in and of itself is kind of a brilliant move on the author's part.I definitely recommend this to anyone who likes murder mysteries.