The book synopsis caught my attention because it was an original, or at least new to me, plotline. The story starts slowly, but you would expect it to build a back story along with setting the scene. For his thirtieth birthday, Anatol has invited his closest friends to his home, where they will play a new game he has developed. The game concept pits friends against each other, as each one plots the death of the other.......after revealing a secret that would justify their death. At this point, the story falls flat. The characters lack definition, no story of how each is tied to Anatol or how they came to have deadly secrets. No reasons given that explain why Anatol would pit them against each other, especially in his home.

The story is a good one, it just needs something to push the readers into stepping into the room as the game is played. It's all seen from afar.

I liked this book to begin with. It had the beginnings of a fun, locked room mystery. Unfortunately the back and forth to narratives made me lose interest so I didn’t finish.

A different and innovative type of thriller

Anatol, a thirty year old antiques dealer with a controversial chapter in his past, invites five people with whom he has been friends since his days at university to his family's decaying estate in Wiltshire to celebrate his birthday. As part of the festivities he has invented a game for the group to play called Motive Method Death, in which each player draws the name of two of the other participants at random and must write a short story in which one of "their" two people kills the other. As is common in groups of people who have been friends for a long time, there is plenty of material with which to work...secrets, resentments, and other dynamics...and the line between fiction and reality easily blurs...and might just lead to an actual murder.
Fair warning, Ink Ribbon Red falls firmly into the experimental fiction category, an interesting and innovate idea that is well crafted and calls to mind the locked room mysteries of Agatha Christie as well as more contemporary spins on the trope like Knives Out. The ambitious gambit deserves high marks, as do the thematic threads that wind through the construct (fairly serious ones, like euthanasia and the pitfalls of friendship). While the dynamics between the friend group rings true, the characters themselves weren't particularly likable...they were superficial and cold. While that made sense within the context of the unfolding mystery, it created for me a distance that detracted from my overall liking of the novel. The narrative is not chronological, and it was not always clear what was part of the "real" plot and what was story-within-the-story; also the ending seemed rushed and not as quirky as the overall thrust of the story led me to expect. In short, there is much that is clever and intriguing, but I felt that the construct interfered with the actual narrative...a 3.5 ⭐️ rounded up to 4. Fans of Rian Johnson as well as readers of Anthony Horowitz, Martin Edwards and Lucy Foley might want to give this a try. My thanks to NetGalley and Henry Holt & Co for allowing me access to this clever thriller in exchange for my honest review.

Anatol always invites his friends to his house (his father’s house) to celebrate his birthday. This year he will be 30 and you might assume that since his father recently died, there would be no gathering. Nope. Anatol still wants Dean, Phoebe, Marcin, Janaka, and Maya to spend the weekend. What is the theme? Why murder as he wants everyone to write a murder mystery. Who are the characters? Why each other naturally! Sounds like a fun weekend……..
Well, maybe not. Secrets are revealed in each story, secrets about the other guests…… and Anatol. At first, I was slightly confused. The stories that they write are woven into the narrative. Once I knew the author’s style, I was able to separate the now from the stories, no problem.
I didn’t love how it ended, but the journey to get there was unique. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, it seems like you should leave your high school or college friends behind. Especially if you are a group of people with secrets.

This was an entertaining read that I finished in a few hours.
A well written story that kept me hooked from the very beginning.
The characters draw you in and keeps you flipping the pages.
They are realistic and very well developed.
I really enjoyed the writing style. I found myself hooked, turning the pages.

Ink Ribbon Red had a really cool premise, and I was excited to dive in but unfortunately, it just didn’t work for me. The characters felt kind of flat, and I never really connected with any of them. I kept waiting for something to pull me in, but I was honestly just bored. I didn’t care much about what happened next, and that made it a struggle to get through. Disappointing, especially since it sounded so promising!

Would recommend to: Christie enjoyers; people who like The Secret History or If We Were Villains and want a slightly lighter version.

I'm beginning to realize murder mysteries are a harder and harder sell for me as I get older; particularly ones that begin with the ending spoiled, i.e. a "whydunnit" rather than a "whodunnit." It can work but is harder to pull off. Here, Anatol annoyed me from the first or second page, which made it difficult to want to care about finding out who killed him/the specifics of why. Points back for beautiful prose + a fun setting + a well-defined cast of characters. 3.5 stars!

The big premise here is that the characters are participating in a game where they each write a story involving one of the characters killing the other. The conceit here is that these fictional stories blend with the real narrative, making it impossible to tell what is really happening in the story and what is another entry in their little game.

Generally, these people are all awful to each other— even when factoring out the fake murders— and they don’t even seem to like each other very much. They are also harboring some pretty big secrets. Perhaps that’s what makes it so easy to blur the lines with the murder stories and make them appear more plausible.

I would recommend Ink Ribbon Red, although not as enthusiastically as some of the other books I’ve read this year. The English country house setting is reminiscent of classic tales from the mystery genre, and the revelation of big secrets kept me hooked.
I received a digital ARC of this book from Henry Holt & Company

It’s Anatol’s golden birthday, so he’s invited all his friends to his country house to celebrate. It’s his 30th birthday, which was on May 30, so it was a special day. Plus, it was just five weeks after the death of his father Gus, so despite what was going on in their lives, Anatol’s friends wanted to be there for him. He doesn’t want cake or presents for his birthday. He wants to play a game. He wants to play Motive Method Death again.

His friends balk. They’re not a big fan of the game that Anatol created, but it’s his birthday so they reluctantly agree. Maya, the artist; Dean, the engineer; Phoebe, the sister of Dean’s wife Yulie; and Janika, who just came back from Australia. Marcin had to work late—his finance job often meant he had to work late—so he would be there the next day. But they can start the game.

In the game, everyone chooses two names from a bowl. The first name, written in red, is the killer. The second name, written in green, is the victim. Once you have the names, you write a story in which the killer murders the victim. But you can’t tell anyone what names you have chosen. The only way you can trade in a name for another is if both of the names you have match. Anatol asks that they all type up their stories with a couple of typewriters he has out for the job, and that they use the red ink ribbon instead of the black.

As the friends talk and drink and work on their stories, they all have secrets that could come out over the weekend and cause someone else pain. And someone knows about those secrets and is writing notes to the friends that sound a little threatening. I know, in block letters. I have pictures. But who is behind the notes? And what do they want? Is it a threat of danger or a prelude to blackmail?

Ink Ribbon Red is a fascinating thriller. It jumps around in time, and weaves together the stories that the friends write about each other’s deaths with real time, where there are vague threats and so many secrets. It does take a good chunk of the book to understand what is really happening and what is from the stories in the game, and the secrets leak out little by little from both the reality and the fiction. I felt like I really had to be on my toes to stay with this story, but it was fascinating.

I listened to Ink Ribbon Red on audio, narrated beautifully by Dino Fetscher. He did an exceptional job of helping me keep all the characters straight and (maybe more importantly) keeping all the stories straight. This novel is a wild ride, with layers of lies, and putting it all together as a whole takes some work. But it was so worth it. This is a gift that keeps on giving, and while some of the stories are a bit gory and may infect my dreams, I’m still so happy I took the time to play the game.

Egalleys for Ink Ribbon Red were provided by Henry Holt & Company, and a copy of the audio book was provided by Macmillan Audio, both through NetGalley, with many thanks, but the opinions are mine.

There’s a plot device sometimes used in mystery novels, known as the “unreliable narrator”... which means what the storyteller says may--or may not—be true.

Usually, this unreliable person is one main character.

But imagine being faced with no fewer than six such potentially-unreliable sources?

How would you know who—if anyone—to believe... and who was absolutely not to be trusted?

Welcome to author Alex Pavesi’s intricately-twisted tale, Ink Ribbon Red, where absolutely everything anyone says is suspect.


There are a few different ways people approach “milestone” birthdays (the ones ending in zeroes).

Some treat such birthdays like harbingers of apocalyptic proportions, best avoided (or at least, strenuously denied). For others, those “big birthdays” are a great excuse for a massive shindig. And for some, such birthdays are no different than any of the others which have already come and gone.

Anatol falls more in the latter camp. Yes, he’s having a thirtieth birthday party... but it’s exactly the same as the last dozen or so have been, with his little group of college friends venturing out from points across London and journeying to Anatol’s family estate in the countryside, to fete his name day.

Phoebe, the schoolteacher, was sort of the hub from which the spokes on their wheel of friendship radiated. Maya, the still-struggling artist. Dean, the precise engineer (and husband of Phoebe’s sister). Marcin, the successful broker, living the glamorous life. And Janika, the journalist, who travels often, chasing stories.

Then, of course, the Birthday Boy himself, Anatol. The one who perpetually felt like an outsider. A hulking figure always physically-larger than most people, raised on a big country estate by an imposing ogre of a father. Just... different, in ways not even he really had words for.

But this year, itself, was just different.

Anatol’s father had only very recently died—under unusual circumstances, no less—leaving the family estate, well... in a state.

Janika had been working in Australia, finishing up an assignment, but promised to make the arduous trip back in time to celebrate with the gang.

Phoebe felt like her life was going basically nowhere, fast.

Dean had... a secret. Actually, more than one.

And Maya? Just wanted something—anything—interesting, to happen, to break the monotony and inspire her.

In other words, the time was ripe... when Anatol, once the majority of his friends had assembled, announced the return of a game he’d created and had them play in the past: Motive Method Death.

His game seemed simple enough, on its face; each person drew two names randomly from two different containers—the names of two of the friends there—and then fashioned a short story detailing how and why one friend murdered the other.

The goal was to create the most believable murder... because when you’ve known each other for more than a decade, you tend to know the trigger points. The touchy bits. The deep, dark secrets (including those that not all of the group were privy to).

And then the following day, Anatol would read all of the stories aloud... presumably, for everyone’s amusement. (Or enlightenment? Embarrassment?)

At least, that’s what he told them...

But once the stories have voices—and everyone knows something unpleasant or unhappy or unappealing that they didn’t know before—things take a whole different turn.

The friends look at each other differently. With distrust... or outright contempt.

And just like that, the fictitious murders they’d been cajoled by the birthday boy into writing, take on new relevance... giving anyone, everyone, a reason to actually do the deed to someone else there, that weekend.

And then? That’s exactly what happens...


So. It took me longer to get through Ink Ribbon Red than I thought it would.

It wasn’t that I didn’t find myself invested, though; I did.

Nor was the issue that the book wasn’t well-written; it was.

My problem? That I couldn’t find it in me to truly like any of the characters... which always makes for a harder read, full-stop.

I really didn’t like ANY of the characters.

And yet...

After racing through the last quarter of the book—because I HAD to see where it was going to land—my overall feeling is really positive.

In a nutshell? I sorta loved this book.

It toyed with me... even when I (eventually) suspected the direction it was going. (Yet still didn’t quite work out...)

It teased and tantalized me, still off-footed as to precisely what was real... and what was just a fantasy, begrudgingly cobbled together by each of the assembled friends.

And in the end, I found that not only did I think (quite a lot, as it took me back to my college years, too), but I also felt... for one of those pain-points in life (whether it’s 30 or 40 or whatever, at some point, most of us feel something), and I understood.

There are moments when any one of us may find ourselves on the edge of a precipice... and we don’t know quite which direction we’ll fall.

Until we do.

(Or we don’t.)

Ink Ribbon Red won’t be the easiest read you’ll have all year... but if you’re up for a challenge, and feeling things you don’t necessarily want to feel? This’ll do it. In grand style.

~GlamKitty



[Thanks to Henry Holt & Co. for providing this book for review consideration via NetGalley. All opinions are, as always, entirely my own.]

3.5 stars rounded up!

Six friends gather together to celebrate the 30th birthday of Anatol, the “grit” of their group. In the wake of the death of Anatol’s father, spending the weekend at the man’s house seems morbid, and yet, no one can say no. Once most of the group is gathered, the birthday boy suggests playing a game he made up years before in which each person writes a story about one of their friends killing another. Again, no one can deny Anatol his wishes.

Told in a peculiar timeline with false narratives thrown in, this novel was intriguing but also confusing. I really liked the idea of the characters’ stories being part of the much larger picture, but it did make it more difficult to be invested in the characters themselves. I didn’t particularly like any of them and would not have cared if more of them had actually died. That being said, I applaud Pavesi for his experimentation!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC!

Thank you to netgalley and the publisher for allowing me to read this advanced copy. Locked room murders are the best!! The mystery of is what I am reading is true, or am I being tricked the whole way?? I did have a hard time getting to know the characters, but any book with a Clue vibe and I'm in!

Thank you to NetGalley, Henry Holt Publishing, and to the author for the opportunity to read an ARC of this title. An honest review was requested but not required.
This book was pitched as Knives Out x Saltburn, and while I didn’t watch Saltburn, I loved Knives Out. The concept of stories-within-a-story was a fascinating one and I was hoping for a little British humor added in. It started off a little like Clue; a bunch of people at an isolated mansion, doing murder mysteries. Apparently these individuals are “friends” but I don’t think I would agree. They certainly didn’t seem like friends. Maybe acquaintances? Frenemies? Parents forced to small-talk at their childrens’ school events? Certainly not *friends*.
I found it difficult to follow; perhaps my old brain wasn’t up to the complexity of the puzzle, IDK. The characters were roundly unappealing and unsympathetic, and none of them seemed to have any particular warmth for each other. I couldn’t follow the story, either. Perhaps in a visual format it would have worked better. As it is, I found the book frustrating and had a hard time forcing myself back into it when I wanted to put it down.
Readers with more brain space to devote to the book and its nested Russian-doll complexities might enjoy this more. It wasn’t for me.

One weekend with friends in England, but make it a game within a game and a story within a story. Interesting premise and plot just not quite as intrigued by the characters as I would have hoped. Thanks to NetGalley and Macmillan for an advanced copy for a honest review.

Based on its description, I really thought I was going to enjoy this book, but unfortunately it wasn't for me. I struggled to connect with any of the characters, and I wasn't invested in the plot. Maybe I am just not smart enough for this book, but the stories within the story made it confusing. It was hard to tell what the real story was. With its comparison to "Knives Out," this book sounded really fun and interesting. I hope to try again in the future.

Thank you to NetGalley and Henry Holt & Co, for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Ink Ribbon Red by Alex Pavesi

What did I just read? In the Acknowledgments, Pavesi wrote that his idea for this story was to “build its central mystery on the reader’s inability to tell story from story within story.” And that’s where this book was utterly triumphant.

The premise of this one required a friend group, and I never understood how they were friends because they appeared on page to hate each other the entire time. The characters themselves were either tedious or flat. I could not find a single one to root for.

Pavesi took liberties with the structure of this one. It flip-flopped between current (maybe) past (maybe) not real story at all (maybe) at indiscernible intervals. I never grasped the logic in these structural decisions nor did I think it added to the overall enjoyment.

Overall, take my review with a grain of salt because I did not understand this one. I merely kept reading with the hope that it would finally make sense to me. (It didn’t.) Fans of tensions in friend groups, books that play with structure, and misdirection may enjoy this.

Thank you Netgalley & Henry Holt and Co. for an eARC♥️

You’re at a cozy countryside mansion with your oldest friends. There’s wine, nostalgia, and—oh yeah—a super chill game where you all write stories about killing each other .What could go wrong? EVERYTHING, APPARENTLY.
Alex Pavesi’s new thriller is like if your group chat came to life… but with way more backstabbing (literally?). The game "Motive Method Death"starts as a fun creative exercise—pick two friends, write about one murdering the other—but when real secrets start slipping into the stories? YIKES. Suddenly, that passive-aggressive comment from three years ago doesn’t seem so harmless anymore.
Read If You’re Into:
🔥 Friendships held together by duct tape and denial.
🔥 Mysteries where everyone’s guilty… of something
🔥 Books that make you text your group chat: So… we’re are cool,right?
This book is deliciously messed up—like a car crash you can’t look away from, but with better dialogue. Pavesi somehow makes you root for these disaster humans while also low-key hoping they all get arrested.
Who makes it out alive?No spoilers, but let’s just say… maybe don’t play this at your next birthday party. 😬

I've got to admit, this was a tough read for me. While the technique of having the action jumping around in time has been well done over the years (see Pulp Fiction), it's possible to overdo it. I think this book did. It's a little fun to attempt to piece together the action which has been presented non-sequentially, kind of like a big jigsaw puzzle, but when the presentation becomes a distraction, I believe the author has gone too far.

Other than that, I thought the characters were well-developed. It kind of bugged me that none of the characters were very likeable. None of them were the type of people that I could get behind. There were no "good guys" in this story. While it isn't necessary to have a hero in every story, the cruelty and unlikeability of the characters did kind of grind you down.

Maybe others would enjoy this story. But it wasn't for me.

I get what Alex Pavesi was going for here, but it didn’t really pay off for me. The concept is great, and Pavesi has a great writing style that I actually quite enjoyed. My problem with this book was mostly the characters. I love the concept of hating the characters in a book in most cases, but not feeling the way I did for these characters: they were annoying, pathetic, whiny, melodramatic, and no amount of twists and turns could make me like them enough to redeem this book for me.

Speaking of twists and turns: I like a propulsive, fast-paced, twisty thriller a whole lot. The last thing I want when I read a book is to be bored. But this book has so many swerves that I actually got bored of it. It started to feel predictable in its unpredictability. By the time we got to the final turn I honestly felt like flinging my ereader across the room because it didn’t feel like a brave choice–it felt like chickening out.

The only saving grace for this book is Pavesi’s excellent creativity and really fantastic writing style. Honestly, without those two things I wouldn’t have finished this book at all.



I was provided a copy of this title by the author and publisher via Netgalley. All thoughts, opinions, views, and ideas expressed herein are mine and mine alone. All reviews three stars or under will not appear on my main social media. Thank you.

If you’re a fan of Agatha Christie, locked-room mysteries, and messy friend dynamics, Ink Ribbon Red is a fun, unsettling ride. The story follows six friends gathering at their rich friend's house for a birthday celebration shortly after his father's death. What could go wrong?

Turns out... a lot. The group plays a game called Motive, Method, Death, where they anonymously write fictional stories about how they’d “unalive” one another. It’s supposed to be harmless, but when reality starts echoing fiction, the tension gets real fast.

Creepy, clever, and filled with slow-burn suspense. Some pacing issues here and there, but overall a sharp, twisty read I definitely recommend.