The Other People by C B Everett Book Review

About the Book:

A group of strangers gathered at a mysterious country house are in a race against time to stop a serial killer in this twisty, high-concept thriller that combines Agatha Christie with Shutter Island.

Ten strangers.

An old dark house.

A killer picking them off one by one.

And a missing girl who’s running out of time…

And then there was one.

Ten strangers wake up inside an old, locked house. They have no recollection of how they got there. In order to escape, they have to solve the disappearance of a young woman. But a killer also stalks the halls of the house and soon the body count starts to rise. Who are these strangers? Why were they chosen? Why would someone want to kill them? And who—or what—lurks in the cellar?

Forget what you think you know.

Because while you can trust yourself, can you really trust The Other People?

My Review:

Everett tries a new concept on the old and well used theme of a locked room murder mystery. The narrative is presented in multiple points of view. There is some creepy monster in the basement in addition to the people finding themselves suddenly in a locked house. The character development was interesting in that I did not find any of them people I liked. It was hard to feel anything as they die. Perhaps that was the author's intent. They are tasked with finding a missing woman, something that makes no sense at the time but does in the end.

There is a twist at the end that brings in another well used theme dealing with our trust in the narrators. Perhaps Everett is trying to be clever, combining ideas from Agatha Christie's Ten Little Indians and The Murder of Roger Akroyd. In the end, this book just did not work for me.

My rating: 3/5 stars.

About the Author:

C.B. Everett is the pen name for author Martyn Waites. He trained at the Birmingham School of Speech and Drama and worked as an actor for many years before becoming a writer. His novels include the critically acclaimed Joe Donovan series, The Old Religion, and The White Room. In 2013, he was chosen to write Angel of Death, the official sequel to Susan Hill’s The Woman in Black, and in 2014 won the Grand Prix Roman Etranger for Born Under Punches. He has been nominated for every major British and French crime fiction award and has also enjoyed international commercial success with eight novels written under the name Tania Carver. Photo: Steve Best

Atria Books, 320 pages.

I received a complimentary egalley of this book from the publisher. My comments are an independent and honest review.

(My star ratings: 5-I love it, 4-I like it, 3-It's OK, 2-I don't like it, 1-I hate it.)