Death on the Island by Eliza Reid
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
In Death on the Island, we follow an eclectic group of characters who come together in a tiny island community off the coast of Iceland for a diplomatic event.
We have the mayor of the town, an Ambassador from Canada and his wife, a local high-profile chef, an artist with ties to the island, and others. They all come together for a special dinner to open up their talks and hopefully create good spirits amongst the group.
It’s supposed to be a joyous occasion, and it does seem to start out that way. That is until one of the guests ends up dead of unknown causes, but what everyone quickly assumes to be poison consumption.
Making matters worse, a brutal storm is bearing down on them. It’s clear no one is going to be leaving the island. All the better to catch a killer, but in the meantime, doesn’t that mean they’re trapped with one?
I had a blast reading Death on the Island. I went into it with zero expectations. I hadn’t heard of this author, or any buzz for the book, but the title screamed, READ ME!!!
I’m so glad I made the time for it. I was completely engaged from the start. It actually turns out this is the author’s debut novel, and I’m so excited for more.
I appreciated how quickly Reid gets us into the action. I was drawn into the story so fast. I liked that we were following political figures, such as ambassadors and mayors. I haven’t read one like that in a while, so it was a nice change of pace.
I enjoyed how the author formatted the story as well. You get the reveal of the death, and then you go back in time and track through the events leading up to that death. It was done in a countdown-style that I feel added a level of tension to it that might not have been there otherwise.
Learning about this cast of characters, as well as their relationships to one another and potential motivations for why someone would take out anyone at this dinner party, was very entertaining. There was certainly plenty of drama to oh-and-ah over.
With this being said, I’ll admit there’s a lot of moving parts and it was a little hard to track in the beginning. For a minute, I started to feel overwhelmed, but I tried to just relax into it, not worry too much about the details, and to just let Reid do her thing.
Ultimately, Reid pulled it off. This had me so invested, I had no longstanding issues tracking the various characters, or their interpersonal dramas.
Overall, I loved the atmospheric-island setting, which was done so well in my humble island-dweller opinion. I also really enjoyed the use of an inclement weather element to help build out that tense atmosphere, as well as the interesting cast of characters.
It was so gripping trying to solve this murder mystery, my head was all over the place. I did Buddy Read it with a friend, and definitely recommend that. It was so fun trying to guess the killer together, and their reasons behind it.
Thank you to the publisher, Poisoned Pen Press, for providing me a copy to read and review.
I loved how this kept me guessing, and I’m looking forward to more from Eliza Reid!!!