Interesting read and unlike any other murder mystery I've ever read. The unique writing style and shifting perspective kept me entertained and engaged. The setting and time period also gave the story a fun crucible to hang around in. The shifty and despicable cast of characters were fascinating and bizarre. While the story kept me hooked in, I'm a bit perplexed by the way it ends. Different and worth the read.

Very interesting book and a fun way to make a classic trope new and interesting. Mystery books are always a favorite of mine and reading one that broke the fourth wall in so many ways was a lot of fun I will also say I fully expected a different killer, so great job with that.

I wasn't sure what I was getting into when I opened this book. I've never read anything quite like it.
A few things did cross my mind though. I'm sure glad that it wasn't just me who thought this.
This book seems to have 3 different stories. Kind of hard to keep up with in my opinion
I did like the 1st person point of view however. That sort of helped.
Then it changed into something else entirely! I thought oh my!
A lot of suspects which did sort of make the story interesting.
I do think that this story will keep you turning the pages to actually see who it was.
The many twists and turns were interesting.
I will say that other people who love stuff like this may love it.
I'm sorry but this wasn't my cup of tea so to speak.

288 pages

3 stars

I really liked the author speaking to the audience, as if including the reader in the mystery.

That being said, I think this book was too erudite for me. I love locked room mysteries and was hoping for such. I like to be entertained when I read. I also read for escape. I didn’t feel as though this book were either. It was too much work. (Whatever that means.)

I am sorry.

I want to thank NetGalley and Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage and Anchor/Knopf for forwarding to me a copy of this interesting, but daunting book for me to read, enjoy and review. The opinions expressed in this review are solely my own.

I love a locked room mystery. This was quite good. It kept me entertained and guessing till the very end!
I just reviewed West Heart Kill by Dann McDorman. #WestHeartKill #NetGalley
[NetGalley URL]

When I first started this book, I didn't know what to expect, and my first instinct was "this book isn't for me." But because I had agreed to read it, I decided to give it a chance and at least read a bit more. And within a few pages I was hooked. I was hooting with laughter and loving the second person sections where the author told me what I was thinking. I was really into it. I loved all the little history lessons and I added so many classic mysteries to my to-read shelf because of how they were described here. For the first 75% of the book, I was enthralled. I was recommending it to my friends, talking it up in my book groups, the works.

Then, I got to the climax, the remaining 25% of the book, and I was turned off faster than you can say "ugh." This lovely novel that I'd been enjoying became a play. I kid you not, a play, with characters on a stage and a plant in the audience and really weird descriptions for why everything happened. It was written so strangely at this point, that I could barely understand who committed certain crimes and why. Everything was distracting away from the actual content. And then there was the big reveal at the very end, and while I'm still not even sure I understand who the murderer is, if it's who I think it is, I could vomit. That's gotta be the worst ending for a mystery that I have ever read, and I've read hundreds. I've never been so disappointed in the whodunit. Even Gone Girl made more sense than this.

So now I'm stuck. I want to give this a decent rating because so much of the book was incredibly enjoyable for me. But so much of that enjoyment has turned to dust because of the ending. I might recommend future readers only read the first 3/4 of the book and ignore the ending, since honestly it would be better if you had no idea who the murderer was than finding out who the author decided it is. I'm so dejected right now because I really thought this book was something special in a good way, and it's the other kind of special. The kind that gets you all excited and then leaves you wishing you could erase sections from your memory. After all the talk about mysteries, the reader is left with a huge one at the end of the book--and I for one hate it when some things are left unexplained. What a disappointment.

I can't not recommend this book because there are too many interesting things in the pages. The sections about mysteries, the traits of good mysteries, and the history of mysteries are all amazing. Parts of the actual mystery are interesting, but only the parts in second person. The rest of the book I would recommend skipping for your own sanity. Talking just about the parts I enjoyed: If you rarely read mystery novels, this book probably isn't for you. You might not find this book interesting if mysteries in general don't captivate you. But if you've ever tried to write a novel or short story, focusing on characters' motivations, you'll love this. If you've read more than 5 mysteries in the last year, this book is for you. If you've ever gotten to the end of a mystery and, at the big reveal, wondered how the author could have slipped in so many (now) obvious clues without you noticing them, there's a chance this book will become a new favorite.

But stop reading when the play starts if you don't want a nasty taste left in your mouth.

I received this book through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Here are a few quotes for the book that I think will give prospective readers an idea if this book is for them. Please note that these quotes are from the ARC and may not reflect the book when it is published.

"McAnnis does in fact remember her, from a trip to the Blakes ’ apartment in the city, during college, but she was just a kid then, with the full horror show: braces, acne, awkwardness. But now she is an altogether different creature . . . and you think, as you read the passage that follows, of how all novelistic descriptions are essentially exercises in voyeurism and fantasy, especially when, as here, the words evoke the tropes of what academics call the male gaze: tanned thighs, ripped jean shorts, star-spangled red-white-and-blue-bikini-topped breasts, blond shag framing cheeks dotted with summer freckles . . . descriptions that, you’ve always suspected, reveal more about the writers than the characters they’ve invented."

"Since every reader is, by definition, a voyeur, you don’t hesitate to peek over the detective’s shoulder as he rotates the drug bottles to read the labels. Noting evidence of the affluent insomniac: Aspirin. Valium. Flurazepam. The merely embarrassing: Preparation H. Vagisil. The expected: Minoxidil. Premarin. And the intriguing: Ritalin. Quaalude-300. A writer so inclined, you reflect, could build a biography based solely on the contents of a person’s medicine cabinet. You think, also, that an overdose of sleeping pills is a frequent, if unreliable, method of murder."

"As a general rule, in murder mysteries, the least likable character is the most likely to die. But devious writers can anticipate your knowledge of this cliché and thrust a character like Warren Burr into early prominence to surprise you, later, with an entirely different victim. Or, perhaps, more devious still, circle back and kill him off in a double bluff— destined to die all along, exploiting and perverting your expectations from the start. Of course, some writers, among them not the least skilled, use much the same trick to mask and unmask their murderers . . ."

"Readers, like detectives, have nothing to go on but their own experience, and so, from the first sentence of this book, perhaps without even realizing it, you’ve been reviewing past fictions the way a sleuth might consult his case files for possible solutions or at least lines of inquiry. As a student of murder, you know that every crime initially presents with a virtually endless set of potential clues and storylines. But, properly pursued, every investigation takes on the shape of a funnel, ultimately narrowing to the motives that have driven men and women to kill for thousands of years—love, hate, fear, greed, jealousy—along with a panoply of lesser vices—lust, ambition, rage, vanity, shame, cowardice. And so, like a forensic detective who seeks to match crime-scene fingerprints to a database of known criminals, you understand that the answers to this mystery may be found in the case files of your prior reading."

Adam McAnnis, private detective, was hired to find out about the New England West Heart Club and some of its members. He calls upon an old college friend to get an invite to their 4th of July celebration. As McAnnis gets to know the people there, he finds that they all have secrets. A suicide, an accidental shooting and then murder, with all the members becoming trapped at the resort when a devastating storm hits. McAnnis now feels that he needs to find the killer.
This story is not just a straight forward mystery. To begin with we have the narrator filling us in on background, sidebars of stories, plotting and insights into writing a mystery. The protagonist detective moves the actual story along. Then the narrator becomes the collective "we" of the club members and finally the reader becomes part of the plot line trying to figure out "Whodunit".
This unusual telling of a noir type cozy murder mystery, even with all the asides, moves along at a quick pace holding the reader's interest until the final denouncement.
Thank you NetGalley and Alfred A. Knopf for this e-galley of "West Heart Kill".

5 sparkly stars, with a crown on top! A favourite of the year for sure. What a brilliant read for mystery lovers and fans of unusually structured books!

But while I loved reading this, I wouldn’t recommend it to every reader of mystery fiction.

If you’ve enjoyed, occasionally tongue-in-cheek, mystery books with a very strong meta element, like Everyone In My Family Has Killed Someone by Benjamin Stevenson or Eight Detectives by Alex Pavesi and you get a kick out of the puzzle element of Janice Hallett’s novels, then you might want to check out West Heart Kill. I’m a fan of all those things and this was the perfect book for me!

On the other hand, if you want your mysteries to be straightforward and linear whodunits and you don’t care about the genre and its history, then this might not be the book for you.

The story switches between the murder mystery part, set at a hunting club and an almost nonfiction-like, genre analysis part. On top of that, the text plays with different narrative perspectives. First-person, second-person, third-person - all there! I found it super interesting and had an extremely fun time reading. But if this is not what you want from your fiction, it has the potential to be incredibly irritating. Maybe even boring.

For me, everything in this just worked. The structure, the mystery itself, the thematic content!

I’ll be thinking about this book for a while and I will most definitely be keeping my eye out for any future releases by Dann McDorman!

A bit too meta for me. This closed room mystery (a genre I adore) but with loads is nods to the classics (meh) and with a winking nod to the reader through a talk to the audience approach. Ok but not great.

Well this is certainly cool! West Heart Kill is what I’ve seen others call “meta-murder mystery,” as in, a mystery that takes readers through a journey through the genre itself. The stylistic choices are what I would call daring (but it must be noted my ventures into the mystery genre are fairly limited to the adventures of Nancy Drew and Angela Lansbury). I mean this in a good way. I think playing with genre conventions and nodding to mystery classics is super fun and I’d recommend this book to anyone who wants to see a book deftly psychoanalyze why we’re all so entertained by people kicking the bucket in most gruesome ways. Super fun, possibly not for those who prefer their murders “cozy.”

I received an invitation to read an ARC of this book and the publisher said in the email that this book will grab you from the start. I don’t think that is the case here. It is a very quirky take on a locked room murder mystery. The author breaks the “4th wall” and takes the reader down lots of paths that seemed unnecessary. Including the history and devices of the classic mysteries, like Agatha Christie, were sometimes interesting but also distracting. There are so many characters with intermingled relationships that I had to bounce back and forth to keep track of them all. The author was certainly innovative in his approach but unfortunately I started to lose interest in the story about half way in and ultimately skipped to the end just to finish. I am sure there is an audience for this book but it really was not me, perhaps I am too much of traditionalist to be able to break away and accept a new approach. I appreciate the opportunity to read this book, all opinions are my own and not influenced by the publisher providing this ARC.

This is the most unusual murder mystery I've ever read! I liked it. A group of families have cabins in a woods and frequently go hunting. Someone has hired a detective to poke around-- we don't know who or why. Someone dies. Is it a suicide? Then someone else dies, making some want to take another look at the purported suicide.

The writing style is so different. I found it appealing and imaginative. I think that if you enjoy the writing of Anthony Horowitz, you would enjoy West Heart Kill by Dann. McDorman.

Thank you to Netgalley for the ARC.

I received a preview of this book for free from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I am a lover of mysteries, especially "locked room" ones, so I was looking forward to this one which promised a new take. However, I struggled around the 20% mark, again at the 40% mark, and again near the end, to simply finish. Perhaps because I'm a frequent reader of mysteries, the details provided in the asides the author offers throughout by breaking the fourth wall to discuss/analyze/teach/ponder the mystery genre, its authors, and more, did not intrique me as it could have and I was simply bothered that my story was being interrupted yet again. I felt more and more the author simply didn't have enough of a murder mystery plot for an entire novel and therefore threw in some well-worn (to me) facts and suppositions to beef it up. I felt pandered to and distracted all at once (yet, perhaps the distraction was on purpose to throw me off the clues?), while the ending was simply a study in frustrating your reader. All that said, the basic premise held water up to the almost-end, and a reader not as familiar with the genre and its history and rules might feel differently and enjoy this format and the special details they will discover throughout.

West Heart Kill started out okay but got more convoluted and confusing as it progressed. I have to say that I really struggled to finish this book as I wanted to give a fair and honest review. First, there were just too many characters, none of them the least bit likeable. I especially didnt like the fact that the writer broke the fourth wall, often jumping the narrative from the reader to the main character. I did not enjoy the style of this book at all.

West Heart Kill by Dann McDorman is a literary murder mystery set at a remote hunting lodge where everyone is a suspect, including the erratic detective on the scene. This is the author's debut novel.

I so wanted to like this book, but I found myself putting it down and going on to other books. It just never captured my attention or held my interest. I did finish the book because I wanted to give the author and the book a chance. I didn't like the book's format in how it was narrated and jumped around.

A 2.75 out of 5 stars (rounded to 3).

#WestHeartKill #NetGalley @AAKnopf

Really enjoyed West Heart Kill so many twists and turns so many suspects.A book I will be recommending to mystery lovers.#netgalley #westheartkill

West Heart Kill reads like a love letter to the mystery genre. Or maybe more like seventeen love letters to the mystery genre. As far as plot goes, it's a classic set-up--a whodunnit at a remote country club with an eclectic mix of characters. But it's so much more: a brilliant literary pastiche, a genre-bending homage to the great mystery authors who have gone before, a metafictional self-analysis of the novel's own plot. To say any more would be giving too much away. If you love mysteries, you'll adore West Heart Kill.

Received a copy from NetGalley agreeing to review. Since my copy is on loan, I plan on purchasing, hopefully a first edition, once it’s published. This is Dann’s debut mystery and I can’t wait for his next one. The plot revolves around a remote hunters lodge established generations ago by some wealthy families but this generation is having money problems, so do they sell or bring in a new wealthy member. We have murder, attempted murder, suicide, suborning suicide, lying, infidelity, blackmail, and extortion. We start with the question “who hired the detective and why”. Uniquely “reader” you are instructed to aid the detective in researching his case. That’s just the plot there is so much more to this book, the author inserts at various points details about authors with instructions on how to write a mystery detailing some dos and don’ts through the years. I would love an index on these sections. I can’t prove it but I believe the author tried to use every trick the golden age mystery writers used. I’m glad the author included a list of all the characters, much needed at the end. Also, supplied a map, not sure why. The book ends with a confession-but by who? Someone tell me please.

Unfortunately, I only made it about 10% of the way into this book before I decided it was not for me. Although I've read a fair amount of postmodern fiction, I found the narrator's asides intrusive and disruptive in a bad way that annoyed me. I didn't find anything interesting in the characters to pull me in and was very disappointed in the flat female characters. The final straw that made me put the book down was when the narrator hinted that the central crime was about to take place only to find out it was a dog killed by a car. That trick just felt cheap and diminished the value of the lives of animals in a way that made me roll my eyes. I was so uninvested by that point that I didn't care enough to be mad about it.

closed-circle-mystery, detective, historical-fiction****

Designed for the mystery genre literati.
The plot is very good, the detection references are really fun for those of us who geek classic mysteries, and there is just enough wit to entertain. But. The format of presentation is so not my reading preference. But a friend gave it a thumbs up after listening to me whine because he really liked it.
I requested and received an EARC from Knopf/Pantheon/Vintage and Anchor via NetGalley.