Other People : A Novel

The locked-room mystery gets a bloody makeover in this ambitious if uneven effort from Everett (a pseudonym for The Woman in Black author Martyn Waites). Ten strangers wake up in a sealed-off country house with a case of amnesia. Among them are a London PR exec, a Black American stripper, a retired police detective, a gentleman thief, an army officer, and a young mother with her baby. A mysterious woman named Amanda informs the guests that they've been assembled to help find 19-year-old Claire Swanson, the latest in a string of missing or murdered women; previous victims have been buried alive with air canisters that ran out before they could be found. The search for Claire quickly turns violent, as foreshadowed by a smugly omniscient character called "The Beast in the Cellar," who offers long digressions on ethics, Freudian psychology, and gothic horror as he narrates the grisly deaths of one houseguest after another. What begins as an Agatha Christie homage gradually develops into something nastier, but the story lacks the wit or character development to amount to much more than a splatter-fest. Horror buffs might enjoy the brisk pacing and gnarly violence, but traditional mystery fans will be disappointed. Agent: James Willis, Watson Little. (Mar.)