Heads Will Roll by Josh Winning
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
**3.5-stars**
Heads Will Roll; phenomenal title and equally phenomenal cover. Sadly, the story inside didn’t quite blow my hair back, but for the most part, I had a good time with it.
This involves a group of characters who have gone to stay at Camp Castaway. Basically, it’s a Summer Camp for adults who desperately need to separate themselves from social media for one reason or another.
Our main character, who goes by Willow, is an actress who has recently been canceled due to an poorly-worded tweet. Something, at the time, she felt was funny, turned out not to be received in the nature she intended. Thusly, she lost her job, her fiance, and any semblance of her regular life.
As she checks into Camp Castaway, she can’t wait to be separated from her phone, to go by an assumed name and to be able to forget about everything going on out there.
The beginning of the book is mostly meeting all the camp residents and finding out a bit about why each of them is there. We also get a bit of history behind the camp and the family who has run it for years.
We also get a few scenes interspersed here or there that show us in no uncertain terms that there is an unhinged killer on the loose, and they happen to be stalking and eliminating the residents of Camp Castaway.
This was a bit of a mixed bag for me. The first 25%, I was invested. I was interested in the concept of this camp and I liked getting there and meeting some of the other campers.
I also enjoyed the very first scenes where we were exposed to the menace stalking the camp. I wanted more of that. Instead we sort of veered into the personal drama sector for way too long for my tastes.
Some may call this a slow burn, and I guess I can see that. I love a slow burn though, but IMO, you have to keep it progressing at a steady clip; keep adding, keep building.
To me, this didn’t really feel like it was doing that. I want that fire to grow. If I’m adding kindling to it through an entire story it should build some nice big flames by the end.
This was like a pile of wood assembled at the beginning, with a tiny flame that around 80% had gasoline and a lit match thrown on it.
I was bored after the first 25% until around the 80% mark. That should be impossible with an ax-murderer on the loose, but here we are.
Luckily, it did really come alive for me in the last 20%. It fact, that last 20% was so good, I bumped it up a full star. I just wish it could have been that consistently off-the-walls the whole way through.
Just because this didn’t necessarily work for me the entire way through, doesn’t mean it won’t work for you. I would urge anyone with interest to give it a go.
I’ve read quite a few other reviews at this point, and many, many Readers are really enjoying it. And like I said, even for me, that last little bit almost made the slog through the middle worth every minute.
Thank you to the publisher, G.P. Putnam’s Sons, for providing me with a copy to read and review.
I enjoyed this more than the other novel that I’ve read from this author, so we’re definitely on an upward trajectory!