I really enjoyed this book! It starts as almost a homage to Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None with a number of characters stranded on a remote island with a killer on the loose (It’s even mentioned in the early pages of this book!), but there are enough twists to make it unique; most of the inhabitants have been there for months or years for one. They’re also trained agents - prisoners of their own government - rather than having been invited there by the killer. Likewise, the action switches between the island and the mainland - there’s still a sense of isolation on the island, but it’s tempered with the mainland.

My only quibble is that a few characters seem to have more modern sensibilities. When the original title of Christie’s book is mention (complete with a vulgar term), one character reacts to it. Given the book was published a few years before this book is set, it feels a little contrived, as if Ms. McNeal is apologizing for Christie’s title.

Another pet peeve of mine is when a book isn’t the first in the series, I find references to prior books distracting and sometimes annoying. In this case, however, I’m intrigued and want to start back at the beginning of the series, see how the different relationships and prior cases have led to this one. And reading other reviews, this book might not be the strongest one in the series, so I'm looking forward to reading more of Maggie's adventures.

Overall, an enjoyable read with just more than enough suspense and mystery to make it hard to put down.

Highly recommended.

The Maggie Hope series has gotten grittier over time and while I really enjoyed the Paris Spy, I wasn't sure if I was up for more of the torture Maggie and Sarah had endured in Nazi-occupied France. So it was a bit of a relief to catch up with Maggie back in Britain and in a fairly standard murder mystery. This story is a riff on Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None. Instead of invited guests, the characters here are prisoners in an old manor house on a remote island in the Hebrides. Maggie and her fellow "guests" are all trained SOE agents being held on ice because they know too much or have been judged unfit for missions. As they are murdered one by one, Maggie has to investigate and try to save herself from the killer. In the meantime, DCI Durgin is trying to find Maggie to testify as a witness against the Blackout Beast, and starting to get suspicious about not getting any answers to his inquiries about her. I enjoyed the story, but I'm ready for Maggie to be reunited with her friends and back to work on the war effort in some capacity.

Maggie Hope is back and her mission is not what she signed up for. She has been sent to an island with other agents that are a security risk and none of her family or friends know where she is. Things get worst on the island when people start unexpectedly dying.. Who can Maggie trust? Meanwhile her friends in London start asking questions and searching for her. A mystery with some history that will wanting more from Maggie.

An intriguing story with interesting characters. Well developed. Lots of twists and turns that keep you guessing until the end.

Maggie Hope has been sent to a Scottish island to the Killoch Castle because she knows too much about what is going to happen to end the war. She is not alone though, there are a group who for one reason or another have been sent there to stay until the war ends.Suddenly those on the island start dying. Who is behind it? They would all like to know. In the mean time it is discovered there is a German spy among them. This comes from the mainland where hardly anyone knows they are on the island. Maggie is needed for a trial as witness and her friend David starts looking for her. Can they find what happened and get to the island before it is too late?

The Prisoner in the Castle is the story of British Intelligence agents who are sent to Scarra Island for further ‘training’. In actuality, remote Scarra Island and its castle are a prison to remove those agents from the rest of the world. One by one, everyone on the island is being murdered.

Sadly, this was not one of my favorite books. I believe the author took on too many characters to work into the story. As a result, those characters became shallow and, in many cases, either predictable or not credible.

The story itself, including the side story of why Maggie was supposed to be found, was dry and slow-moving. There was too much detail, and not enough story. Details were given to the nth degree and became distracting rather than supportive of the story. For example, the details regarding fly fishing had me skimming over that part of the tale. The ending was far too contrived to be realistic.

There were several phrases that didn’t fit in with the time period. For example, the term ‘African-American’ was yet created; instead, ‘Negro’ (or possibly ‘colored’) would have been used. As well, the term “… slept with him …” was not is use in the ‘40s.

Thank you to NetGalley and to Ms. MacNeal for the opportunity to read and review this book. I wish my review were more complimentary.

Tensions rise, the game changes, and everyone could be the killer. Just when you think you have decided who is behind the game, they are the next to perish. An enjoyable read and more so with a storm brewing outside.

Maggie is a brave, educated, strong young woman who I have come to love through the series. The ending of The Paris Spy was an unexpected cliffhanger and I was eagerly waiting for this installment, but unfortunately this was a disappointment.
Nothing really happens on the Island of Scarra where all these agents are isolated and imprisoned. They start getting killed off one by one but and I thought Maggie would get an opportunity to investigate and find the killer, but that’s not what happened. Whatever she learned, she just stumbled upon by accident. I hoped atleast the story arc of the German Spy would be interesting, but it turned out to be quite anticlimactic. None of my favorite characters seemed to have much to do here.
I would still probably continue this series because Maggie is a wonderful character but this book was definitely forgettable.

A very interesting concept for a mystery. A group of highly trained agents (all capable of murder with their bare hands) being restricted to a remote Scottish island without any communication with the outside world. When they start being murdered, and dropping like flies, suspicion and mistrust abound amoung the survivors. Can Maggie Hope (also being detained) solve the mystery and survive? The book must be read to determine the outcome.

I have rated this book 4 stars

I received an ARC from Netgalley for my unbiased review.

If you like Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None and WWII intrigue, you will certainly like this book. I have read and enjoyed all of the novels in this series, starting with Mr. Churchill's Secretary. Maggie Hope is a resourceful, smart and spunky protagonist who takes great, and possibly foolish, risks, in order to help with the war effort. In The Prisoner in the Castle, Maggie has been exiled to an island where agents who pose a risk to security are secretly being housed. Over the course of Maggie's stay on the isolated and claustrophobic island, life goes on with one big exception...Maggie's fellow agents are being killed at a rapid, daily rate. Why? What danger do they present? Who can be trusted? How will the murderer be stopped? Will Maggie survive or could this be the end of the series? You will need to read the novel to find out.
Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for a fun read in an enjoyable series.

This was a sad disappointment, the mystery was thin and I knew too early who the villain was. Very repetitive and sadly lacking in the suspense of the earlier novels in the series. A bridge too far in the series, in my opinion.

In this new Maggie Hope mystery, we take a break, mostly, from spying and the war to have an old-fashioned Agatha Christie-style manor house mystery. [cue spooky music] Isolated on a Scottish island, residents are dying one by one. Maggie Hope must solve the case!!

A couple of things were a little silly - a man interred in a vault twenty years before would not emit a strong smell of decay. Some to the characters were a tad overdrawn and caricaturish. Characters include one character who carried a taxidermied fox around, another kept talking about ghosts, and one had a club foot. Some poor editing, as well: one character was noted to leave the house in one scene, then be in the room to go get paper and pencil (chap 20), then mentioned to be outside.

Still, it was an entertaining book, with rich historical information and atmosphere. The characters were fun, and I doubt if they'll be back in the series. The book feels very separate from the others. I enjoyed reading it.

I received this book from Netgalley.

The Prisoner in the Castle #8 in this Series is historical mystery fiction worthy of Agatha Christie. Maggie Hope is an American who has family in both England and Germany. Her loyalties are firmly with England serving during World War II in many capacities and lately as a Intelligence agent in special operations. I highly recommend this book and the entire series if you like thrillers, spies, unusual murder mysteries and military action. I have read every book in the Maggie Hope series and enjoyed them all. I wish to thank the author, publisher and netgalley for making this book available for me to read and review.

Ugh, nothing happened in this book. The main character wasn't integral to the plot at all, she was merely the vehicle through which we watched the story. She didn't find the bad guy, she didn't do a good job protecting her fellows, and she didn't [spoiler alert] even take down the bad guy on her own: he met his demise accidentally while she was trying to escape. This character is a strong, educated, brave woman when she's the leading lady; this book wasn't about her at all.

Although I did enjoy the premise of the story, I was disappointed since I expected (and have come to depend on the character I know and enjoy). This was somewhat different especially with the geographic restriction of being limited to the island.

I received this as an e-galley from NetGalley. Honestly, this book was a little slow for me. I kept hoping I would get more invested, but it never really came. With that being said, I have never read any of the Maggie Hope books and I don't read a lot of mystery, so you might still want to give it a try. It was nice for me to step outside my normal reading tastes.

I got involved with the story...but it took a while. The author “filled” in the first part with run on sentences and a huge abundance of multi-descriptive words. Way too much...I almost quit reading.

"Prisoner in the Castle" eBook was published in 2018 (August) and was written by Susan Elia MacNeal (http://www.susaneliamacneal.com). Ms. MacNeal has published eight novels in her 'Maggie Hope Mystery' series. This is the eighth in the series.

I categorize this novel as ‘R’ because it contains scenes of Violence and Mature Language. The story is set in Scotland during World War II. The primary character is Maggie Hope, a former British spy.

Hope has been sent to a castle on a remote Scottish island because she has become aware of the plans for D-Day. She, and a hand full of others from the intelligence community are there to set out the war where they cannot reveal sensitive information that they have come across.

Soon after a new resident arrives, members of their small community begin to die. At first, the deaths seem like accidents, but before long it is obvious that there is a killer amongst them. Not only are they living with a killer, but the evidence indicates that there is a German spy on the island after Allied secrets.

I really enjoyed the 8 hours I spent reading this 320 page World War II-era mystery/thriller. While this is one of a series, it reads well as a stand-alone novel. I liked the characters in the novel. I would like to go back and read earlier novels in the series, and I will certainly be looking for future additions. I like the cover art. I give this novel a 4.5 (rounded up to a 5) out of 5.

Further book reviews I have written can be accessed at https://johnpurvis.wordpress.com/blog/.

My book reviews are also published on Goodreads (https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/31181778-john-purvis).

Maggie Hope is a likeable character who finds herself in all sorts of crazy situations. This book in the series has the feeling of an Agatha Christie mystery. Maggie is a prisoner in a castle on an island and someone is killing her fellow prisoners one by one. Always fun and enjoyable to read the latest installment in this series. Highly entertaining.

"The Prisoner in the Castle," in many ways, is a nice revamp of Agatha Christie's "And Then There Were None" - Seclusion of few secret agents on an isolated island, the inhabitants are being murdered, their fear and the will to stop the killing and so forth. The only difference between the two books, plot wise, is the culprit in "The Prisoner in the Castle" was punished and the heroin survived. Bottom line, "The Prisoner in the Castle" is just as enjoyable as "And Then There Were None."

Susan Elia MacNeal crafted a story that is based on a classic yet it stands out on its own. The vibe and the voice were strong by bringing the historical and political elements into the story. I thought the story was simply a good copycat at the beginning. As the plot progressed, however, the copycat I saw no more but noticed a great and engaging wartime mystery. Pacey, well written, suspenseful and even spooky sometimes, I have had a great time reading "The Prisoner in the Castle."

It definitely could be read as a standalone. I encountered no confusion without reading any precedent books in the series. Thank you Random House for providing the e-gallery through Netgallery for my early enjoyment. I can't wait to read the series starting from the beginning and will follow any subsequent releases by the author.