Ink Ribbon Red challenges the reader to figure out what is true and what is false as the characters in the story play a game where they make up the deaths of their fellow characters. This book kept me guessing on what was actually going on vs. what was fiction.

Ink Ribbon Red by Alex Pavesi
#eightyseventhbookof2025 #arc #inkribbonred

CW: death, murder (in so many violent ways), adultery

From NetGalley: Anatol invites five of his oldest friends to his family home in the Wiltshire countryside to celebrate his thirtieth birthday. At his request, they play a game of his invention: Motive Method Death. The rules are simple: Everyone chooses two players at random, then writes a short story in which one kills the other.
Points are awarded for making the murders feel real. Of course, when given this assignment, it’s only natural for each friend to use what they know. Secrets. Grudges. Affairs. But once they’ve put it in a story, that secret is out. It’s not long before the game reawakens old resentments and brings private matters into the light of day. With each fictional crime, someone new gets a very real motive. Can all six friends survive the weekend, or will truth turn out to be deadlier than fiction?

My thoughts: This book was bizarre. I’m not sure if I liked it, but it was definitely something different. I had no idea what was going on, until SPOILER you reach the part of the narrative where Anatol suggests the game. It’s at that point you realize that the interludes of murder you’ve already read and were confused by are the murder stories. Or are they?

None of the characters are likable. I didn’t care about any of them, so I wasn’t invested in whether they lived or died. But it was kind of fun to be confused for so long. I would look for the author’s next book based on this.

Thank you to @henryholtbooks and @netgalley for the advance copy. (Available now, pub date was 7/22/25)

Ink Ribbon Red is a cerebral twisty brain-teasing mystery/thriller by Dr. Alex Pavesi. Released 22nd July 2025 by Henry Holt, it's 320 pages and is available in all formats. It's worth noting that the ebook format has a handy interactive table of contents as well as interactive links.

Trippy and cerebral. Readers will likely find that it takes a while to grasp what's real and not, what's actually happening, and even how the characters really relate to one another in terms of motivation and purpose. It will probably take half the book before most readers really get a firm(ish) grasp on what's going on. That will be a bridge too far for some. For the intrepid readers, the author really does a great job engineering a solid locked room puzzle and he's adept at writing stylish prose.

The characters are a disappointing lot; unlikable, whiny, immature, stilted, and frankly annoying. Can't imagine anyone would want to spend 10 minutes with any of them. They also don't seem to like one another even slightly (that's putting it mildly).

The unabridged audiobook has a run time of 7 hours, 38 minutes and is capably read by Dino Fetscher. He has a well modulated tenor voice and does a good job with the disparate accents of both sexes and a range of ethnicities. Sound and production quality is high throughout the read.

Four stars with the codicil that the author disregards *all* the "rules" about pacing and fair play. It's a smart book written by a plainly intelligent author.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.

My first Alex Pavesi novel but definitely not my last! Wow this one was a doozie! What starts as a thirtieth birthday celebration quickly takes a turn. So many hidden agendas with secrets and grudges galore.
Thank you NetGalley, Alex Pavesi and Henry Holt and Company for the opportunity to read and review this book

Unfortunately Ink Ribbon Red wasn’t a home run for me. Felt a big drug on and I was ready to be done with it. HOWEVER, I will say I think there is a large demographic of readers who will love this, so it’s getting a solid 3.5 stars.

The premise of this novel is undeniably original and immediately drew me in—a group of longtime friends reuniting for a birthday celebration, only to play a chilling game of Motive Method Death, where each person must write a murder story featuring another as victim or killer. The structure, weaving together the “real” narrative with the characters’ fictional stories, is clever and inventive, constantly blurring the lines between truth and imagination in a way that kept me guessing. At its best, the book offers a fresh, puzzle-like reading experience reminiscent of a Christie-style locked-room mystery with a metafictional twist. That said, the execution felt uneven: the pacing was slow in places, some of the characterizations lacked depth, and the tension never fully pulled me into the room with them. Still, the concept is fascinating, and readers who enjoy layered mysteries, experimental storytelling, and a dash of psychological intrigue will likely find this a thought-provoking read.

This is a DNF for now I think. I'm intrigued by the premise of multiple short murder stories written by a friend group and those stories revealing secrets and grudges being kept throughout the group. Unfortunately I've been struggling to get into this at this time. I might try again later.

Thanks Netgalley and Henry Holt and Co for providing this ARC to me!

A rather confusing book. I did try the audiobook as well. Neither were really for me. I felt like it was going in all directions and it just wasn’t for me.

"Then what shade is this?”
“I don’t know. Ink ribbon red?”
“Ink ribbon red...The color of fictional blood.”

“Grief is an awkward portmanteau of guilt, regret and disbelief. Because those are its three main ingredients."

The intricate intoxicating Ink Ribbon Red, by almost too clever psychological thriller author, Alex Pavesi, has been one of the hardest murder mystery thrillers to rate. Its often jumbled timelines make for complex twisty stories within a story. Yet there's such brilliance in its twisted premise.

Despite the surprising death of his father, Anatol invites his 5 oldest friends to his newly inherited home to celebrate his 30th birthday. His one request is to play the game Motive, Method, Death, that he invented, and they've played once before. Each person pulls one of their names from 2 hats. One name is a villain and one is a victim. Then they write a short story about why and how the villain kills his victim. Anatol judges the winner. Simple. It should be a "weekend full of fictional death."

But when one of them turns up dead maybe the stories of betrayal, lies and secrets among the friends isn't so fictional. Actor Dino Fetscher was beyond impressive with the often unlikeable narcissistic characters and their various inflections. From sarcasm to anger to indifference he nailed it.

We don't learn about the game until some scenarios have already played out. So a few events weren't real. Sometimes the present was the future or the past. By the end we learn the truth...or do we?

Reading and listening to Ink Ribbon Red, from its unique title to its twisty plot, is a bit confusing at times, often genius and always pure thriller entertainment.

I received free copies of this book/audiobook from Henry Holt & Company and MacMillan Audio via #NetGalley for a fair and honest review. All opinions are my own.

A group of friends gathers at one friend's family home to celebrate his birthday, a tradition for this group of friends, even as they grow older and see each other less often. They play Motive Method Death, a game where each person draws two player names and must write a realistic murder mystery in which one of the names is the murderer and the other a victim. These stories are placed throughout the book, and all take place at the house they're staying at, so part of the fun of this book is trying to determine which chapters are the main plot and which chapters are stories written by the characters. I thought this was a fun and unique concept that really kept me on my toes and had me hooked on this book.

Rating: 3 stars.

There were multiple times during this book where I stopped and thought "is this one of those books where you are supposed to take it apart and try to put it in the right order??" to figure out the plot. The jumping around, the multiple "stories" mixed with the facts, and the unreliable characters made my head spin. This book is 10000% someone's cup of tea, just not mine.

Thank you NetGalley and Henry Holt & Company/Macmillan Audio for an ARC in exchange for an honest review

While I can admire what Pavesi was trying to do with the stories within stories, this didn't work as well for me as their previous novel the Eighth Detective. The characters were all different shades of annoying and the only positive things about them were the different ways they 'died', or didn't die, it was confusing as hell.

Alex Pavesi clearly likes to play with structure in his novels. Which is fine in theory and can even be a huge plus if well executed. But I struggle with books where the story is retrofitted to conform to structure for structure’s sake, and that seems to be a recurring issue in Pavesi’s work.

This shared some problems in that regard with The Eighth Detective, but that at least had a good story to go with what was a pretty wobbly format. This one felt like it was written only to support the format, and as a result it feels more like a writing exercise than a novel, and one that doesn’t really succeed in that respect either.

The characters are neither likable nor interestingly unlikable, and the general theme in terms of why and how they ended up in these circumstances is one we’ve seen many times before.

I’m all for unusual structure in a mystery, but not when it exists only for its own sake.

Ink Ribbon Red is a layered, captivating thriller that blurs the line between fiction and reality in the most intriguing way. The timeline jumps and the stories the friends write about each other’s deaths add a unique, eerie twist that kept me guessing. It takes time to piece together what’s part of the game and what’s really happening, but the slow reveal of secrets—both imagined and real—makes the payoff worth it. You definitely have to stay sharp while reading, but if you love a mind-bending mystery, this one delivers. Fascinating and totally original.

'Ink Ribbon Red' was an intellectual puzzle box of a mystery. Friends gather for a Bank Holiday. Their host tasks them with writing murder stories with each other as the murderers or victims. The stories are told throughout the novel, and it's the reader's job to separate fact from fiction. I enjoyed the stories within stories theme a lot. I also had fun trying to separate the real murder from the fictional. 5 stars.

This was a wild, twisty ride packed with puzzles and a Christie-style locked-room mystery at its core. The story-within-a-story structure is clever and fresh, and I loved how it constantly played with the line between fiction and reality. That said, the characters were mostly weird or frustrating (looking at you, Anatol and Maya), and the plot sometimes felt more like a writing experiment than a fully developed novel. It didn’t quite stick the landing for me, but if you’re into layered mysteries and metafictional mind games, there’s definitely something intriguing here.

While the author set out to puzzle readers with a clever collection of secrets and blackmail and short stories and murder, Ink Ribbon Red is really more maddening than clever. And without solid, likable characters to follow through the confusing collection of storylines, readers will struggle to wade through this messy mystery.

Full review published on NightsAndWeekends.com and aired on Shelf Discovery.

Thank you Henry Holt & Co and NetGalley for the gifted copy of this book.

I love a locked room thriller and the concept of Ink Ribbon Red sounded so unique, I was excited for this book. Unfortunately the execution fell flat, 20% in and I had to DNF because I was bored. I tried twice to get into this story, but I just didn’t care about the characters.

4.5 rounded up.


Ink Ribbon Red was a mind fuck all around, from the very first page to the very last sentence. Pavesi had my brain in a tizzy.

Anatol, Maya, Dean, Phoebe, Marcin, and Janika - 6 Friends, together to celebrate Anatol's golden birthday and the Bank holiday. From the beginning, it's almost impossible to tell what's a story and what's real, or I should say, whose story belongs to whom, and which murder(s), if any, are real.

While reading this book, and reading about the friends, all complaining about playing the murder game, and trying to sort through how to write these stories that take place in Anatol's house, the house they are all currently staying in the weekend. The house, where Anatol's father, Gus, died in three weeks earlier.


I truly enjoyed this book. The mystery, the thrill, reading how morbid these friends could really be, the black mail.

Thank you NetGalley for this ARC of this Book!

It was at first a little hard to get into, it was hard to follow along with the different stories and to identify what was real or not but I did enjoy the plot. A lot of murders and different plot lines going on. It was okay but wouldn’t recommend someone pick it up.