whodunnitTen lucky people have been chosen to live like billionaires for a week, and have arrived at the lavishly appointed estate of an eccentric billionaire to do so. What they don’t realize is that only one of them will leave the estate alive to return to something resembling a normal life.

One dies the very first evening, at dinner.

As the macabre week goes on, alliances form and dissolve among the ill-assorted guests, and clever puzzles arise. Who will survive the gruesome game — and who is the killer?

Take Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None and mix it up with TV’s Survivor, and you could end up with this fun puzzle. This book is not about elegant prose or deep character development; it’s a series of puzzles. Think of it as a game more than a novel, and don’t be too squeamish as you approach it, because the inventive murders involve a lot of gore.

This book — in spite of its obvious debt to Christie — is really quite a new approach to a mystery, and puzzle fans should enjoy it.