Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None gets a wicked update in Whittle's assured debut. Seven strangers meet at a London restaurant after receiving anonymous dinner invitations. The guests--including a Welsh cop, an IT expert, a fashion influencer, and an editor--are puzzled when the waitstaff provide no information about the host or the purpose of their gathering. After haute cuisine and amicable conversation, the evening ends with each diner receiving a sealed envelope. Lingerie CEO Janet opens hers and reads that she will die at her current age of 44; everyone else's cards hold similar predictions with different ages. The group brushes it off as a baffling prank or reality TV experiment, but a few weeks later, two of them die at the ages specified in their messages, leading the survivors to suspect that someone's out to get them. Whittle smoothly toggles between the perspectives of each guest, maintaining consistent suspense as the years pass and more of them turn up dead. Though the setup is pure formula, crafty twists and voicey narration culminate in an impressive payoff. Whodunit fans will look forward to the author's next effort. Agent: Rebecca Wearmouth, Peters, Fraser and Dunlop. (Sept.)
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Review by Library Journal Review
DEBUT Whittle, who spent 20 years as a journalist, delivers with this debut novel. Seven seemingly unrelated guests are invited to a fancy dinner party where everything is perfect, from the gourmet food and wine to the exquisite service and setting. The only problem is that there is no host, and no one seems to know who invited them or why. The dinner takes an unexpected turn as the guests prepare to leave. Each of them receives a card inscribed with a prediction of the age they will be at the time of their death. At first this seems like a sick prank, but when one of the guests dies weeks after the affair, at the age predicted, the remaining guests become increasingly alarmed and determined to figure out who's behind it before their time runs out. Whittle maintains the tension in this amateur-sleuth mystery/psychological thriller, reminiscent of Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None. VERDICT Christie fans will be delighted with Whittle's new twist on an old classic.--Darcy Mohr
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
A group of strangers find their lives irrevocably intertwined after each one receives a note at an anonymously hosted gathering with mortally chilling information. When seven Londoners meet at a posh underground dinner party on a street "reek[ing] of disappointment," most believe they have walked into a PR stunt. The party stops being entertaining when mysterious black envelopes appear in front of each guest containing cards inscribed with the age each person will be when they die. In a narrative that shifts among the perspectives of the seven dinner guests, Whittle creates a story that probes her characters' psychology as it pays homage to Agatha Christie's classic 1939 murder mystery,And Then There Were None. After three of the dinner party invitees die at exactly the ages predicted, one especially inquisitive and astute guest, Vivienne, surmises that the deaths--which at first seem tragically accidental--were more likely the work of a murderous mastermind. Her hunch only gets stronger when she hypothesizes that the anthropomorphic depictions of the seven deadly sins she saw on each diner's card offered a clue to the identity of the "devil" committing the crimes. She and the remaining guests scramble in quiet dread to "make the most" of the time before their number is up, never suspecting that the very person they fear is closer at hand and more aware of their secrets than they could ever imagine. Readers with a penchant for colorful characters, twisty plots, and surprise reveals will find this novel of suspense especially satisfying. An engaging whodunit that explores the deadly side of karmic retribution. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
