‘You are alert - as a veteran of murder, you know that one of these new characters is likely to be the killer, but which one?’
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THIS 👏🏼 BOOK 👏🏼 IS 👏🏼 EVERYTHING! 👏🏼
I haven’t read anything like this, it’s reminiscent of ALL my favourite country house murder novels whilst also feeling so fresh and new and different! I have seen some very mixed things for this one, and maybe it’s a hit or miss? I don’t know, all I know is that for me it was BY FAR my favourite read of 2023
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Switching perspectives from 1st person, 3rd person and many other narrative structures this book takes you on a JOURNEY. Breaking the 4th wall and talking to the reader personally, it deep dives into the things you adore about the classic murder mystery whilst also managing to deliver a wonderfully inventive story itself. This truly was a masterpiece of a whodunnit, and I can’t rave enough about it! Truly truly one of a kind!
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I couldn’t thank netgalley and the publisher enough for the early read of this one, I’ve already preordered as I want a hard copy of this one and I’ll be making pretty much everyone in my life do so too!!

I had really high hopes that this would be a Knives Out-esque murder mystery, with a clever concept and rich setting. Unfortunately it is a smugly meta, existentialist analysis of the murder mystery genre, where the actual plot took up less than a third of the book. The mixed narrative style is ambitious but sadly not well executed; jumping from 2nd to 3rd to 1st person narration, from a play to a case study to an interview, was exhausting and disjointed. Not sure what all the hype is about.

Having read the blurb about this book on Netgalley I couldn’t wait to get my teeth into it. A gathering of rich country club snobs, a private investigator invited along for a weekend of fun, a dead body and a mystery to solve. Just up my street...or so I thought.

I have no issue with the cast of characters, although at times I was a little confused with them as the men, especially, did seem to be almost carbon copies of each other. The construction is certainly different from most books and was fun, at first. It reminded me a little of John Fowles French Lieutenant’s Wife in that the author often addresses the reader. What I didn’t like were the lengthy passages telling me about the genre of Murder Mystery and how other authors, such as Agatha Christie, Dashiel Hammet, and others, have dealt with it. It was almost like sitting in at a lecture.

Unfortunately the book became even more tedious when the author employed a straight Q&A session with each of the suspects, as if he couldn’t be bothered fleshing it out. All in all I just got the feeling Mr McDorman was trying too hard to be Different, and for me it just didn’t work. I got to maybe just over half way through but couldn’t finish it.

A PI is invited to an exclusive country club but who or what is he investigating?

I loved this, I loved the Christiesque format and the witty narrator. The pacing was a little slow at times, but the narration truly kept me thrilled.

There are a lot of formulaic characters that you would expect given the setting but it didn’t disappoint.

The plot is as deep and dark as it gets, multi-layered with 'who knew what when?' as the strands come together and the finer details get filled in. This is an absolutely compelling, gripping book full of mystery and suspense. Only a few authors can write deeply involving psychological drama of the very highest quality. This is a first for me by the author and one I enjoyed and I would read more of their work. Thank you very much to the author, publisher and Netgalley for this ARC.

3.5/5.

West Heart Kill is a fun and exciting mystery almost Agatha Christie style with a really unique layout. There's a mix of first, third and second person and also the writing style changes a lot but I did find that made the book really different to a typical mystery and I enjoyed it. However I felt like some parts felt a bit disjointed and interested the actual mystery and I also think the story could have been a bit stronger with maybe a smaller amount of characters so it would be easier to keep up. But saying this I do think a lot of people will love this.

Well, I have no idea how this ended and need someone to talk to about it.

However, I was obsessed with getting back to this book and who to trust within its pages. Very original and with famous crime writing intertwined (think Agatha Christie and her techniques). If someone can explain how it ended though I’d appreciate it ha!

When I first heard about this book, I was incredibly excited to read it. I love stories that deconstruct or add a fresh twist to the mystery genre. But not at the price of the mystery itself.

The plot of West Heart Kill has a pretty classic set-up: a group of rich families gather at their private country club to celebrate the 4th of July weekend, and a series of deaths occur. A PI hired by someone at the club gets himself invited to the getaway and sets out to figure out whodunnit. The suspects all have their secrets and vices, which eventually come to light during the big reveal. This plot is interspersed with little tidbits about the murder mystery genre and its history in the Western canon, which I did genuinely find interesting.

As for the style, the author uses a mix of second person, first person singular, third person, and even first person plural throughout the book, as well as shifting from prose to transcript to playscript. And to be honest, I didn't see the point. First of all, I hate when a book uses the second person to tell me what I'm thinking or assume things about 'the reader'. All that ever does is irritate me. Secondly, the constant jumping between points of view and format make it really difficult to get lost in the story and to connect with any of the characters. I had to keep flipping back to the character list to remember who was who, and that meant that finding out who was cheating, who had secretly fathered someone else's child, and who was stealing from the club, wasn't interesting in the slightest. I just didn't care about any of the characters because they were so interchangeable. Unfortunately, this extended to the actual murder; I didn't really care who had done it because it didn't really matter.

I would have given this book one star, but as I said earlier, I did find the informative breaks in the story to be interesting. But if I'd wanted to read somewhat random facts about the murder mystery genre, I'd have picked up a non-fiction book about the history of the murder mystery genre.