The Ending Writes Itself

And "then there were none" the Writers Edition. This novel has all the ingredients of a classic Christie Crime Novel, including a large set of characters in an isolated setting, an ongoing body-count and the resulting paranoia about who the killer is and how to survive. But first and foremost its a story about authors, the cut-throat publishing industry, the thrive to "make it" and the deep rooted desire to tell a great story, just for the sake of it. Read this book if you love character studies, gripping dialogue and an entertaining but absolutely cynical look at writing and publishing. Crime Connoisseurs will also enjoy themselves, but should be aware of the fact, that this novel is a slow-burn in its truest form. The murders take place in the last third of the story, everything before is set-up and a deep dive into the characters. Its definitely worth the wait, but you need a bit of patience.

Six authors are invited to stay at one of their fellow authors' houses, only to discover that he has passed away and that they are now tasked with writing the ending of his final book as ghostwriters – and only one of them will be published. The whole story is big on criticism of the publishing industry and the book market in general and many parts are laced with a good dose of irony and play with all the tropes and readers expectations in general. The „murder mystery“ part doesn’t happen until much later into the story, however the moment it hits you have a similar feeling to Agatha Christie’s „And then there were none“. I had a lot of fun reading this story. Hopefully V. E. Schwab and Cat Clarke will team up again in the near future to write another book.