whitneydaniell

by: Karin Slaughter
published: August 20, 2024
genre: Thriller, Mystery
464 pages, E-Book
GoodReads | Amazon

Synopsis

On what was supposed to be a peaceful honeymoon getaway, Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) Investigator Will Trent and medical examiner Sara Linton find themselves in the middle of a nightmare. Tucked away in the secluded Appalachian mountains, McAlpine Lodge promises an off-the-grid retreat—until a woman’s body is discovered on the lake’s edge, shattering the illusion of serenity.

With each guest harboring secrets, Will and Sara must untangle a web of lies before the killer strikes again. Cut off from help, time running out, and danger lurking in every shadow, the honeymoon turns into a deadly game of survival.

My Final Thoughts

I love a good murder mystery, and I’ve enjoyed the Will Trent TV series on ABC, but something about this book just didn’t work for me. Honestly, it bored me to tears.

I get that a classic way to keep readers guessing is to throw a bunch of shady suspects in their face—and this book does just that. Set in a remote mountain lodge that you have to hike five miles to reach (no, thank you), the story introduces an overwhelming number of guests, all of whom are shifty, secretive, and possible murderers. Then, as if that weren’t enough, we also get the McAlpine family—who own the lodge—each of them just as shady, dysfunctional, and frankly, exhausting.

The McAlpines have run the lodge for seven generations, and their skeletons are practically bursting out of their metaphorical closet. Mercy McAlpine, the current manager, took over after her father’s accident, but she’s a walking disaster—disrespected, disliked, and barely holding things together. Her brother Christopher can’t form a coherent sentence around their family, Cecil and Bitty McAlpine (the patriarch and matriarch) have their own secrets, and Dave McAlpine, a former runaway taken in by the family, started a relationship with Mercy when she was a teenager. Now, their son Jonathan is 16, adding yet another layer of complicated dynamics.

But wait—there’s more! The book also features eight guests (four couples), three kitchen staff, a bartender, the sheriff, the coroner, an aunt, a family friend, and three additional GBI investigators. If that sounds like a lot, it is. It was hard to keep track of who was who, and instead of feeling intrigued, I often just felt lost.

On top of the overwhelming cast, the book spends an absurd amount of time describing the lodge’s layout. There are endless pages detailing the five-mile hike, the various trails and pathways, the lake, the campsite, the dining hall, the bachelor cottages—it goes on and on. While I assume this was meant to immerse the reader or add to the mystery, it just felt like unnecessary filler.

As for the mystery itself? Everyone is so shady that they’re obviously not the killer, and the most obvious suspect is, of course, also not the killer. The McAlpine family is divided over whether to sell the lodge to wealthy Atlanta investors, the guests all have secrets, the staff aren’t exactly upstanding citizens, and the family friend is downright weird. By the time I got bored, I was already too deep, so I pushed through just to confirm what I had already figured out by Chapter 7.

In my opinion, this book should have been at least 100 pages shorter. Some of Sara’s medical explanations could have been trimmed down—especially the drawn-out autopsy scene, which felt excessive. While the descriptions were detailed, the story lacked real depth and emotional connection with the characters. In the end, it was a decent premise weighed down by too many distractions.