West Heart Kill
An outrageously original work of meta fiction
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3.0 • 2 Ratings
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- $15.99
Publisher Description
SHORTLISTED FOR THE ILP JOHN CREASEY NEW BLOOD DAGGER 2024
'Doesn't so much break the fourth wall as crash through it in a bulldozer' Guardian
'Engrossing, surprising, clever, genre bending' Val McDermid
'Highly compulsive reading' Alex Pavesi
'Well I have no idea how this ended and need someone to talk to about it!' Rachel S, bookseller
You.
Yes, you, reading this.
Get in the car.
Sit in the back - you're joining the detective and the other guy who's driving. They're both in the front. Don't think about the other guy. He's not important.
You're going to the West Heart clubhouse. The country club that's so swanky it's in the title of this book. Kill. It's not that kind of kill. Or maybe it is, after all.
You arrive, it's the Fourth of July weekend and look – there's cocktails on the lawn. What's your poison?
Don't flick forward. You just have to wait. Especially for the part when you find out what happens on page XX.
'Diabolical' Chris Pavone
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
McDorman's wily debut breaks the fourth wall immediately, in a sign of the authorial shenanigans to come: "This murder mystery, like all murder mysteries, begins with the evocation of what the reader understands to be its atmosphere," goes the opening line. From there, McDorman introduces private detective Adam McAnnis, who's finagled an invitation to a weekend-long bicentennial celebration at the West Heart hunting club in Upstate New York, where his old college friend's family owns a cabin. After McDorman establishes his large cast (in part through a half-redacted list of dramatis personae), the plot speeds up with a suspicious drowning and the accidental shooting of West Heart president John Garmond. Looking to get to the bottom of both deaths, McAnnis interviews his fellow lodgers one by one. As the story unfolds, the omniscient narrator intrudes to offer up tangents on subjects including murder mystery genre rules ("The key is a sense of fair play—a reader must not feel cheated") and Agatha Christie's famous 1926 disappearance. While these peregrinations may not appeal to mystery fans who prefer a more direct route from crime to solution, McDorman ensures they never come at the expense of satisfying twists or shocks. For readers willing to try something a little different, this is quite the diversion.
