Review by Booklist Review
Kane (The Last Invitation, 2022) pits a group of college friends against their deadly past, paying breath-snatching homage to 1980s horror movies and locked room murder tropes. Just over a decade ago, Mitch, Will, Alex, Cassie, and Jake became the public's primary suspects in the unsolved murder of their close friend Emily. Now, Will has arranged a private-island getaway to introduce his new fiancée, Ruthie, to the group. Cassie and Alex (now married), Mitch, and Mitch's plus-one, Sierra, accept. But their celebratory reunion darkens when a raging storm isolates the island and the puzzling discovery of a man's body resurrects Mitch's painful past. Could two murders in Mitch's circle be a coincidence? And what do they really know about Ruthie? Sierra emerges as the unexpected heroine, as a playful killer, determined to uncover the truth about Emily's murder, mercilessly exposes their secrets. Swift pacing and character-driven red herrings will satisfy readers. Highly recommend for fans of Riley Sager as well as Lucy Foley's The Hunting Party (2019) and Ragnar Jónasson's The Island (2019).
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Kane (The Last Invitation) stumbles with this thin thriller about former college friends haunted by their classmate's murder. Twelve years ago, Bowdoin College senior Emily Hunt disappeared on graduation weekend. Her corpse, "partially clothed and tangled in weeds," was discovered soon after she went missing. The murder was never solved, despite rumors implicating her family, friends, and lovers. Now, four of Hunt's former classmates--Will Mayer, Mitch Andersen, Alex Greene, and Cassie Holder (now Alex's wife)--have reunited on an island off the coast of Maine to celebrate Will's engagement to his girlfriend, Ruthie. Shortly after the group (which also includes Mitch's business partner) discovers that they're cut off from the mainland by rising waters, one of them is murdered. A note found near the body reads, "Time to tell the truth." Stale prose (a setback is described as "the kind of horrible, unexpected thing that caused the air to go still and the trees to shake and bend as they telegraphed impending disaster") doesn't enhance the derivative plot, which offers a few short-lived shocks but mostly dissipates on impact. Closed-circle mystery fans have a bounty of better options. Agent: Lisa Bradford, Bradford Agency. (Dec.)
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
Inspired by Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None, this twisty tale unspools what happens when a gathering of old friends devolves into a killing spree. All the guests invited to a party to meet Will Mayer's fiancee know they shouldn't attend, but as often happens in locked-door mysteries and horror novels, they just can't stay away. Will and fellow Bowdoin College graduates Alex and Cassandra Greene and Mitch Andersen share secrets about the deaths 12 years before of two fellow students, and the weight of those secrets has killed something inside them. Metaphorically, they're rotting from the inside out. On graduation weekend, more than a decade before, Emily Hunt was found dead. At first, the police and friends, as well as people who never knew her, blamed her because she'd been drinking and had a reputation for liking sex. But someone spread rumors that she was murdered by Brendan Clarke, another student, and not long after Emily's death, he was found dead too. Now, this reunion, set on an island in Maine, will blow up all the rumors and well-kept secrets, and everyone's life is on the line. Countless writers have employed the trapped-on-a-deserted-island setup, and this story could easily drown in a sea of clichés. But Kane methodically builds this plot-driven thriller through each character's perspective, then lets us watch as nearly all of them fall on the swords of their coverups. Tropes abound--isolated location, an approaching storm, and a plethora of unreliable narrators--but Kane still manages to keep the plot spinning in tornadic fashion. Mixing a classic plot device with the dangers inherent in victim-blaming and the damage amateur sleuths can cause through misuse of social media give Kane's novel a modern twist. Chances are no one will survive this killer celebration. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
