Publication: 2nd February 2023 – Century
One house. Nine guests. Endless motives for murder…
In the seaside town of Hamlet Wick, nine guests assemble for a New Year’s Eve party to remember.
The owner of Hamlet Hall has organised a murder mystery evening with a 1920s twist, and everyone has their own part to play.
But the game has barely begun when one guest is found dead – killed by a fatal injury to the head.
With no phone signal and no way out of the house, the others are trapped with a killer in their midst.
Someone is playing by their own rules. And in a close-knit community, old rivalries run deep…
It’s New Year’s Eve in Hamlet Wick, in a quiet corner of Devon, and a few people are celebrating by taking part in a murder game. Organized by young Will Hopper, the guests of the murder game include: Gwen Holloway and her husband Hugh, Syvlia and Nige Cobb, Edward and Martha Finn, Justin Fletcher, and Damien White and his daughter Lily.
Right from the start, the tension is high. Gwen wants to renovate the local lighthouse as a first step for her campaign for mayor, but Damien White, the local boy who has turned into a ruthless London property magnate, has bought it to make it into a holiday house. The lighthouse is the set of a tragedy years earlier and the locals want to protect it, so they have started a petition against Damien White. The only one supporting him is Nigel Cobb, who’s been hired to make all the work on it. And while the guests clash, journalist Justin Fletcher hopes that this dinner will get him the scoop to attract the national newspapers and get him out of Hamlet Wick. In the meantime, in another room, the actors hired for the night are dealing with their own tension. And then, someone is murdered and the murder game is no longer a game. No one entered or left the hotel, so who among them is the killer?
The author presents us with a long cast of suspects, each one of them with a reason to want the victim dead, some more than others. Hamlet Wick had been hit by two tragedies in the past and many of the guests are hiding secrets connected to them. But who would be willing to kill to keep their secret?
The Murder Game was a fun and thrilling read and it kept me guessing until the end. It has Agatha Christie’s vibes, a full cast of suspicious characters, it is well-written, and it is set in a location not easily reachable and with no phone signal… everything to keep the suspense high and keep you engrossed in the story. I really enjoyed reading The Murder Game and I couldn’t put it down until the truth was finally revealed!
A huge thank you to Century and NetGalley for providing me with a proof of the novel.
Tom Hindle is originally from Yorkshire and now lives in Oxfordshire, where he works for a digital PR agency. A FATAL CROSSING is Tom’s debut novel and was inspired by masters of the crime genre from Agatha Christie to Anthony Horowitz.
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