Books I've Read: Daisy Darker

Set over one night in a house on a remote island only accessible at low tide, this was a very creepy little thriller.

After many years apart, Daisy's family gather at Nana's house to celebrate her 80th birthday.  As kids, the three girls spent a lot of time here, especially after their parents divorced, yet their memories of their time on the island are not all sunny and fun-filled.  So, each family member arrives with a lot of baggage (and I'm not talking about suitcases).

At midnight, when the tide is at its peak and the island is cut off from the mainland for the next 8 hours, Nana is found murdered in the kitchen.

As a storm rages outside, the family gather to try and figure out who could have done something so heinous.  When, an hour later, another body is found, it becomes increasingly clear that a killer is among them, determined to bump them off one by one before the tide goes out.

The book does a good job of weaving together the present-day mystery with their secrets from the past, creating an ever-ratcheting tension as the bodies pile up and the list of suspects narrows.

I enjoyed this one.  I always like a book with a compressed timeframe and a ticking clock. It really makes every detail important.  And in this book, there were so many details I kind of overlooked as being unimportant before the twist at the end revealed exactly how important they really were.

While definitely contemporary, this book felt like one of the old mysteries by Agatha Christie I read when I was a kid (I went through a period when I was 12 where I read everything the Queen of Crime wrote) and that's not a bad thing.  There's a reason why she was called the Queen of Crime.  And the setting was perfect for this kind of mystery where there's absolutely no possibility the killer isn't among the people in the house.

So, I'd recommend this for people who like a good mystery, especially one that takes place over a single night in a unique, creepy locale.

But don't just listen to me.  Here's the blurb:

After years of avoiding each other, Daisy Darker’s entire family is assembling for Nana’s 80th birthday party in Nana’s crumbling gothic house on a tiny tidal island. Finally back together one last time, when the tide comes in, they will be cut off from the rest of the world for eight hours.

The family arrives, each of them harboring secrets. Then at the stroke of midnight, as a storm rages, Nana is found dead. And an hour later, the next family member follows…

Trapped on an island where someone is killing them one by one, the Darkers must reckon with their present mystery as well as their past secrets, before the tide comes in and all is revealed.

With a wicked wink to Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None, Daisy Darker’s unforgettable twists will leave readers reeling.