Agatha Bennet has died, leaving her family to discover what Agatha has left them in her will. However, this is no normal reading of the will; it's a free-for-all for Agatha's relatives to win her estate. A storm leaves the family trapped inside the mansion, which is perfect circumstances for their deadly family tradition.

This book was...weird. It's marketed as a satirical horror, but I didn't really find anything funny about it. It was honestly cringey more than anything. None of the characters are likeable, which may be the point. This book was just not for me.

I thought the narration on this book was really well done. The narrator did a great job using different voices for the various characters in the story. That being said, I liked the story - it was all wrapped up in the end which is nice. If you like mysteries involving wills, inheritances and murder, then you will most likely enjoy this story. I would recommend the audio as the narrator does a great job. I want to thank the author, the publisher, and Netgalley for giving me an e-copy of this book, in return for an honest review.

A slow start but worth the effort, a darkly suspenseful read that I thoroughly enjoyed to the bitter, twisted end. The narration was brilliant

A deadly competition falling short of its potential

Dead End Drive is a crime novel which winks to the classics of the golden age. Yet, there is no mystery. Therefore, it doesn’t quite keep you on the edge of your seat. The stakes are all about money, so they are rather superficial in my opinion.

Yet, it is entertaining enough and Kieran Regan, the actor for the audiobook, makes an excellent job.

Overall, the novel gives you enough to smell a great adventure, but not enough to saviour its taste.

Description

The death of Agatha Benedict, the head of a rich American family, triggers a family reunion like no other. All heirs interested in acquiring the large fortune left behind by Agatha sit at the table in the dining room for the unofficial reading of the will.

That is moment when everything changes, everything is allowed. A killing spree is set off.
As bodies pile up, who has gut, the wit and the dare to be the last one alive?

Classic setting

If you say a sentence with the following words ‘large mansion’, ‘rich old lady’, ‘heirs’, and ‘will’, then I bet that ‘murder’ is part of it too.

An old rich lady dies leaving her large mansion up for grab according to whatever her will says, but her heirs are ready to murder anyone who stands between them and the big prize.

See? I told you.

The setting is a classic. And as such, there is a lot of potential in the first stages of Dead End Drive.
Yet, the potential is not fulfilled. Here are some reasons why.

Rules and stakes

Throughout the first quarter of the book, there are numerous references to ‘family traditions’ and ‘rules of the game’. Only the brave and daring (or stupid) heirs attended the will-reading. By doing that, they participated in a game which risked their own life.

Yet, I was left somewhere mid-air between being completely part of the game and completely out of it.

The rules are never explicitly stated. I guessed, after a while, that probably it is a race to survival. Whoever doesn’t get killed gets the money.

But if that’s the case, why there is no slaughtering Scar Face-style? Wouldn’t that be the easiest way out?

Someone points out toward the end that guns are not allowed. But surely whoever survives makes the rules. There is no referees for the dead.

Guests at the house go a long way to speak and be nasty to one another, make alliances and double games, they even go on rambling about their views about life, death and everything else, when the most effective thing to do would certainly have been to take out a grenade or a Kalashnikov and kill everyone instantly.

So, maybe I didn’t quite get the rules of the game. Maybe there was something more at stake.
Spoiler alert: there isn't.

A lawless place

By now, you’ll have understood that a few people are going to die in this book.

Yet, there is no consequence to any of these murders. Corpses pile up and are buried or birnt without any concern about the law.

Nobody ever thinks about calling the police. Telephones seem to be a long-forgotten technology. But why?

This lack of connection with the rest of the world – the real world, I dare to say – makes the story lose any credibility.

When the police shows up they are too late and utterly useless.

Characters but no protagonist

The other puzzling aspect of the book is the large number of characters, but the lack of a protagonist.

I have not counted them, but there are quite a lot of guests, probably a dozen, plus the staff at the mansion. That is challenging enough to follow, especially for an audiobook.

But that’s ok, there are books that pull it off. See for example The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle.

What Dead End Drive lacks is an anchor, a reference point around which to turn the whole story around.

Each single character is given the same weight. We get to know their background, their profession, how they got to kill their first victim and so on.

Result? All characters are equally deep, all equally shallow.

There is a slight focus toward Kelly, the adopted son and only minor, but his involvement is passive and other characters have just as much airtime as he does. Plus, I hated Kelly.

Stylistic choices

The narrative is pleasant and entertaining. Yet, there are some points that irritated me.

Here and there, some repetitions made the style look amateurish. For example, in a piece of dialogue, the butler says: ‘it’ not about sad, it’s about true’ or something similar. And a few sentences later he again says: ‘it’s not about need, it’s about want.’

Another odd stylistic choice is the time spent on specific and irrelevant things. Above them all, the rain.

Half-a-chapter is spent describing how much it is raining and how wet the people outside are. The scene of the burial of one of the guests is excruciatingly long, for no particular reason.

Final thoughts

The novel reminded me of the first book of The 39 Clues, by Rick Riordan.

Large estate, old head of family dies, huge fortune at stake, mean family members.

Yet, some key elements are missing from Dead End Drive to make it as entertaining as that.

I wasn't provided with enough focus to enjoy the story. I didn’t have an Amy and a Dan to follow around and get attached to.

I didn’t have a sense of what was going on. I didn’t know the rules of the game and the stakes people were playing for.

Overall, I was left with a half-baked adventure, a large potential, but a big, missed opportunity too.

***Thank you NetGalley for providing me with a free audiobook in exchange for my honest opinion***

This took me a while to get into and then I realised it was based on a game. I did quite enjoy it as it was different.

I was given an advance copy by netgalley but the review is my own.

This was creeeeeepy. I couldn’t put it down and I never wanted it to end but I couldn’t read/ listen to it at night. Highly recommend if you want a scaryone

When Agatha Benedict dies, the tradition of the will reading begins: the last person standing wins the estate and all the inheritance. It's not a cynical massacre, but an open secret, a game everyone close to Agatha knows and is eager to play. Kelly, Agatha's adoptive son, doesn't know about this and is about to pass a very difficult night.

To be fair, this is the first audiobook in English (not my first language) that I have nothing written to follow or clarify when/after listening, so I had to listen some parts more than once. I realized this when I wondered when something had happened or who a character was, because I couldn't remember.

With that being said, I think this was a book with a good idea for the plot and many humorous lines, very creative, but with an excess of plot twists and a little slow at times, though I understand the author wanted to build up all the following events until the end. Some things I disliked were the use of words like "masculine" for some cliché scenes or descriptions, but that's just my personal taste.

The narrator was good, and I appreciated the voice changes to differentiate between characters. It was too enthusiastic in some parts, though.

All in all I liked it, and I'd read other books by Ian Kirkpatrick for a good dose of entertaining.

Thanks to Netgalley, the author and publisher for providing an audio-ARC. This does not affect my opinion of the book.

Dead End Drive.... I don't even know how or where to begin describing this book! I hardly even know what to think of it...

I guess I can describe it as a dark, twisted and overly exaggerated continuous game of Clue!

It's incredibly satirical pretty much from the start, with the characters entering this horrifying death game with the sole purpose of inheriting the Benedict Estate... it all starts with a highly informal and strange will reading after the owner Agatha dies... and it just gets weirder and more gruesome from there.

Poor 14 year old Kelly, the heir to the estate, finds himself in the middle of a cat and mouse murderous game that he never wanted to be part of, and the entire plot takes place during the night after the will reading...

And... I'm sorry to say this book just wasn't for me. It's neither good nor bad, but the ending felt completely flat and uneventful for me. I expected some sort of shocking reveal or twist but... was disappointed. The ending really took it down for me...

I understand the book is supposed to be a social commentary on greed, on different social classes and the disdain that exists between them... but done in a satirical and over-the-top way, but it was just.... not for me unfortunately.


If you like weird, nonsensical and Clue-like (without mystery...) stories, this is the book for you.


PS: It's been 2 days since I finished the audiobook and I still cannot get the character voices out of my head (because some of them could be highly annoying and dramatic...) ... Props to the narrator for being able to do so many incredibly different voices for all the characters!!


Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher Steak House Books for allowing me to listen to this audiobook in exchange for my honest review and opinion.


#DeadEndDrive #NetGalley #AudioBook

Agatha Benedict, the reigning matriarch of the Benedict estate, dies leaving her heirs, hangers-on, and household employees to fight for her riches. Kelly, her 14-year-old son/house pet, doesn't believe anything bad is going to happen. But boy, is he wrong. Within several minutes of the reading of the will, one person is dead. And that is only the beginning...

The Benedict family has an unusual tradition in the wake of the family head's death. A will is written and read, but it is not "finalized" until the next day. Through the night, it is a contest of survival of the fittest and whomever is alive in the morning wins the spoils.

I thought the concept was fascinating - just how badly do you want to inherit a LOT of money? But for some reason, this didn't work for me. Kelly, the "son" of the deceased, was basically only a replacement for her dead cat, Poopsie. I wanted to like her for taking in a poor orphaned boy living on the street, but he was 14 and she hadn't bothered to teach him anything, including how to read. Plus he was such a whiny brat. For having lived on the streets, he had no survival instinct. You want the poor boy to win and keep the estate (as deemed in the initial will), but it's hard to cheer for him when he just hides in his room with a case of the "no fairs."

Predictably, everyone else vying for Agatha's fortune was a creep in one way or another - the driver, the hair stylist, the tennis pro. There was really no one that deserved to live through the night. I'm not sure if it was due to the lack of likable characters, pacing of the story (which was a bit uneven), or my general crankiness that left me wishing for the whole damn estate to just burn down during the night.

I really liked the concept, but the book just did not work for me.

I got this book as an ARC. The concept was great but the book itself was not great. The narrator in the audiobook was just not doing it for me. The characters were very 2-D. The humor sucked The ending was also very bad too. The title, cover, and the idea was the best part of the book.

This book really wants to be a bloodier version of And Then There Was None by Agatha Christie. It takes that story and adds elements of the movies Ready or Not, and Knives Out. And it’s not successful. A woman has died and her children do not automatically inherit. They have to survive a night and a blood bath as all fight for control of the house and the wealth that comes with it. The cast of characters is something found in Clue. It wants to be both a comedy and tragedy. The biggest pet peeve for this reader is that the WHY is never really explained. Just it’s always been done that way, or so and so wanted it that way. That is not an explanation. To be honest, if I was reading this I would have DNFed before I got to the halfway point. However, I was listening to an audiobook, and the narrator did a fantastic job. Between the voices, the inflections, etc. The voice actor is what saves this book from being a complete waste of time.

It was my first audio book, the different voices done by one person was something to adapt too.

But the story was good.
It made me think of cluedo, it’s an old game where someone during dinner gets killed and it was one of the other guests 😇

Some traditions shouldn’t be kept, but when the owner of the estate dies everything gets started...
By hearing the story told, my imagination was very busy with all the details of the murders and scènes..
It was fun and good.

If you love a good mystery/thriller than you should definitely listen/read this book

I really tried. I really really wanted to get into this one. But there really wasn't anything original about it and it dragged out for so long, that I ended DNFing halfway through. I did chuckle a few times at the narrator's character accents though. Hopefully others liked this more than I did!

The book does keep you guessing not knowing how it will end (unless you cheat and skip to the end). Who will inherit the fortune, the house. It did keep me guessing, as i often predict what happens in crime and was glad to be kept on my toes.

The detail to the various attacks and murders are detailed. I think i would have enjoyed it more if there was more character depth, so you could have a favourite to cheer on and others you can hate more.

The narration was good, but there was a few character voices that did annoy me which i also feel made it slightly less enjoyed. Think reading would be better for this book.

Thank you to the publisher and Netgallery for providing me a copy via audiobook for an honest view.

Agatha Benedict is dead and her nearest and dearest have descended upon the Benedict estate for the reading of the will. Around the table are several people including Agatha’s adopted son Kelly, her hairstylist Alex and Gavin, estate and household manager. As expected, Kelly inherits the entire Benedict estate but what Kelly doesn’t expect is the tradition that comes after the will reading. It’s a game of cat and mouse involving all present and Kelly is going to survive the night he’ll need to play dirty.

This is a deliciously dark, funny and very different storyline with some outrageous but brilliant characters. The narrator tells the story in a bold and brash way that brings the listener a fly on the wall experience whilst giving life and depth to each character. Whilst I admit that this book mayn’t be for everyone, I enjoyed it very much

Thank you to Steak House Books and NetGalley for allowing me to listen to this audiobook in exchange for my honest opinion.

3.5 stars. This was interesting! A death, a will reading, a tradition to keep and a fortune to gain - to the one who is left standing the next day at the Benedict Estate. It's a dark comedy, gleeful in it's gruesomeness and serious in the way it pulled up all the darkness in the players of the game.

No mystery here, just suspense and thrills and the desire to see who makes it in the end. I liked it.

Kudos to the narrator too.

Thank you NetGalley and Steak House Books for the arc of this audiobook. It was a trip.

I should preface with the fact that this was my first audiobook. Since this is my first audiobook I have nothing to compare to, but I am not a fan of different voices/personas for each character. That being said I think the narrator did a really good job with it and I think people who are used to listening to books or naturally create different voices for characters while reading in their head will love it.

Overall, the story was ok, the gore was great, but I found there were too many characters which made it hard to follow.

Dead End Drive contains an epic fight for inheritance between family and employees of Agatha. Whoever lives and claims the title gets everything.

I wasn't particularly into this book. It played on a lot stereotypes and it didn't make me feel any sort of connection to any of the characters. I like to have at least one character that I'm rooting for or care about. It did contain a ton of action and gritty deaths so it was never dull. If you want an action packed battle royale this is for you.

I received a copy of this book free from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Dead End Drive follows a quirky, yet terrible (in the nicest way), cast of characters as they fight and literally kill over getting the biggest cut of an inheritance. I'd comp it with The Death of Mrs. Westaway by Ruth Ware, except with more distinct & vibrant characters.

This book had a very unique setting. It felt weirdly whimsical, but with people dying? The game "Clue" was used as a comp in the description and other than it's way more complex, I couldn't agree more. Because it was inspired by "Clue" it gave it a bit of a nostalgic flavor, which I've never experienced in a book I haven't read before.

While the setting is great, the characters are the real stars of this circus. They are very unique and there was never any trouble telling them apart, which can be a problem when you have a big cast like this. I will say that at times they did go a bit over the top and felt more like caricatures vs. real people. Especially since there didn't seem to be a person with a conscious within the bunch.

Overall, it was a pretty quick, fun read!

I don't think I've ever had a narrator so thuroughly ruin a book for me as happened in this book. The voices that are used especially for characters like Alex and Kelly. It was an uphill battle for me not to just toss the book to the side for that reason.

I did find the story to be dark and funny in all the right places. It never felt like it was taking itself to seriously. And would have been an enjoyable read had I been reading a physical copy rather then an audiobook.

Would recommend, but only if you don't have to subjugate yourself to the audiobook.