Death on Holly Island

I’ll admit, I side-eyed the premise at first—*eight writers trapped together?* Sounds like a recipe for pretentious navel-gazing. But *Death on Holly Island* subverts that trope with gleeful malice. The narrator (whose identity is frustratingly uncredited, because they *deserve* praise) nails the tone: think a cross between Alan Cumming’s mischief and Patricia Allison’s deadpan, delivering every passive-aggressive quip like a dagger slipped between ribs. The pacing is relentless, with Everett juggling red herrings and genuine clues so deftly that I rewound twice to catch a throwaway line that turned out to be pivotal. That said, the production isn’t flawless. The sound mixing occasionally muddies quieter lines (a sin in a dialogue-heavy book), and one character’s Scottish accent veers into caricature—jarring in an otherwise nuanced performance. Still, the story’s strengths dwarf these quibbles. The mid-book reveal—tied to a decades-old literary feud—landed like a gut punch, and the final act’s meta twist (involving an *actual* manuscript) had me cackling. It’s *Knives Out* meets *The Secret History*, but with more whiskey and fewer scruples. If you love mysteries that mock the genre while excelling in it, this is your next obsession.