West Heart Kill Book Review
West Heart Kill
by Dann McDorman
Ginasbookreport Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️.75
Genre: Mystery / Thriller
Read This If You Love: Fans of Agatha Christie, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Raymond Chandler and all serious mystery book lovers
“That corpse you planted last year in your garden, has it begun to sprout?”—T.S. Eliot
“Don’t hold back on us. Tell us a detective story.”—Otto Mayer
West Heart Kill isn’t a mystery novel like other mystery novels. Well, or it is. Well, or it is about all other mystery novels. Set at the hunting club of West Heart, our author takes us on a journey through the history of mystery novels as he unveils the secrets and bodies that pile up over the July 4th holiday at this remote club. It’s a very meta take on the genre that is so well loved by many. You, the reader, are a character in this account of neighborly friendship gone awry. Will you (or anyone) solve all the puzzles? What tropes, cliches, or clever tricks will you find along the way?
To be honest, I’m not sure how I feel about this book. Parts of it were 5-star and out of the park for me. From the cover design that harkens to old Christie novels and the opening of character listings to the locked-room scenario…it hit all those notes spot on. Other sections or ideas felt trite and an overreach in the name of being unique and groundbreaking. (I’m looking at you room 302.) West Heart Kill reads like an academic paper presented as a mystery novel. While I think that will work for those of us who are super super super well read in the genre, I think casual readers will quickly look for another book to entertain them. When all was said and done, I appreciated what the author was trying to do, but I’m not sure that he “landed the plane” for me. But that’s just my opinion. What, dear reader, do you think? That’s what West Heart Kill is about, after all….
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