Seven Down is a satirical spy fiction novel set in Toronto about the aftermath of an ill-fated overly complicated conspiracy code-named Operation Fear and Trembling, by a mysterious organisation known as “The Company” which has placed a collective of human assets into a hotel with little knowledge of what is expected of them. I requested it based on a highly complimentary review by a keen member of the NetGalley Reviewers Facebook group, who’s also a GR friend and was impressed by the originality and cleverness of the concept even though I tired of it a little by the end. I recommend avoiding spoilers as far as possible, and be prepared to be as confused as the hapless pawns, but trust that it does all make a twisted kind of sense by the end.

In a near future, post-Covid, a jaded unnamed Company agent has pulled together the transcripts of a series of interviews for his colleague Nadja, held over a couple of years and arranged out of chronological order, with the seven employees of the King William luxury hotel who have been waiting years to be activated for a single mission. The sleeper agents, all extricated from their former lives, working in different areas of the hotel including reception, catering, security and management, report back their accounts of that disastrous day, digressing into their own personal histories and how they each came to the job, alongside their dreams, hopes and regrets. “Humans are little whirlwinds of chaos.” Some are angry, some are sad, some are philosophical, but none of them knew what they were getting into or what the point was, and only when each individual’s story has been told will the whole absurd fiasco make sense.

This is a short debut novel by a talented writer who has created a disparate range of characters - variably sympathetic, amusing, annoying or pitiful, each kept in the dark about their real purpose. I tore through the first half, trying to figure out what was going on, but then started to wonder what I was missing - I very rarely reread books - too many on the TBR already, but feel I probably would get more out of this from a second go. I liked the understated dark humour and the modern-day pop culture and celebrity references, and the final reveal of what it was all about, though slightly underwhelming, did provide the answers to the puzzle. Recommended if you like dry humour and unconventional original story-telling.

Thanks to NetGalley and Dundurn Press for the ARC. I am posting this honest review voluntarily. Seven Down is published on November 30th.

An interesting concept novel that takes a bit of patience. Seven employees of a hotel, each in a different department, committed to working as "sleeper agents" who would each play a specific part in an assassination to take place at the hotel. Except things don't go as planned and now they're alll being interviewed. It's an odd one in some ways but then all the sudden the story will come together. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. This won't be for everyone but give it a try.

Going into this book I didn’t have many expectations. All I knew was that the story was structured through a series of interviews which I thought was super exciting. I have previously loved novels which are structured like that so that made me excited to start the novel.

In terms of the structure and the interviews. I thought that was done really well. I felt the story flowed well, I was reading it really quickly and it allowed me to get invested instantly. I thought it was an ingenious way to tell the story. The issues I had with the novel was I wish it had focused solely on the operation. Quite a lot of the characters went off on their own personal tangents, some which connected perfectly with the main mystery and some which felt wholly irrelevant. I enjoyed the main mystery of this failed operation so much that I didn’t;t care about the personal tangents the characters went on. I understand they are there to build a better picture of the different characters but I just really didn’t enjoy them. It took me out of the story and I just wanted to focus on the main mystery at hand.

Because these characters went off kilter a lot, the story derailed for me quite a bit which ultimately led to me getting to the end of the novel feeling a bit dis-satisfied. I personally wished for the novel to focus more on the core mystery.

In terms of the characters I thought the variety in the characters were great. All the characters had strong narrative voices that felt very different from one another and I really enjoyed exploring who these characters were. I really liked the characters Summer and Rhonda. When you are relying heavily on characters to drive the story I felt Whitton did a great job of creating complex and realistic characters.

Overall, I felt this novel had loads of potential but started to derail near to the end leading to a underwhelming conclusion.

Confusing. At first I thought this would be like The Manchurian Candidate, with a phrase setting events into motion.
The people interviewed went off on several tangents.
I decided I don’t have the intelligence to analyze this puzzle. Thanks, Netgalley and publishers, for allowing me to read this.

I love an experiment in form! Happy to include this cleverly told fiction in the November edition of Novel Encounters, my regular column highlighting the month’s best fiction picks for Zoomer magazine’s Books section. (review at link)

Firstly, thank you to #NetGalley and #DundurnPress for giving me a digital advanced reader's copy of #SevenDown by #DavidWhitton in exchange for a genuine review.

This book was recommended in one of my netgalley facebook groups and I'm glad that I requested for it and got approved too. I didn't know what I was getting myself into. The premise of the story was very interesting I don't usually read these kinds of books but it was a breath of fresh air from the usual genre that I've been reading. However, halfway through the book I felt like the book was just not for me but maybe it's just me because a lot of people had excellent reviews for this book. Maybe it's just not my cup of tea? But anyway, I'm still glad I finished this book and didn't put it down as DNF.

It's a thriller, but also an everyday sort of normal bureaucratic snafu. It's not a humorous novel, though some parts are. I liked the interview format, I'd be interested in listening to this as an audiobook.

this was such an interesting lil book about an assassination attempt gone wrong and the employees of a hotel who were involved in it all

told in a series of interviews and how the day should have gone, it covers a number of years as well as a whole bunch of characters and the way their minds were on that day

i really liked it! it lost me a bit at some parts and i enjoyed some characters more than others but overall it was a very interesting book

I was intrigued by the premise of this title, which turned out to be an unusual and quirky read.

Told through a series of interviews, the reader is introduced to seven very different characters, all of whom have worked at the King William Hotel in Toronto. Whilst the are familiar with each other in their working roles, none are aware of the others covert employment by “the Company”.

This was an enjoyable read and one that I’d recommend.

Many thanks to Dundurn Press and NetGalley for the review copy.

I was so intrigued by the premise of this story and I couldn’t wait to sit down and get started on it. Seven Down is about seven different people, all unknown to each other, who are each waiting for a signal. When the signal arrives, each person is “activated” and must play their part to complete an assassination mission but things invariably go terribly wrong. The book is written from the perspective of interviews with each of the seven involved and the interviews take place after the event. It takes a while to piece all of it together but as each piece gets put in place the puzzle takes shapes and provides a fascinating picture.

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with the opportunity to read and review this book.

An interesting, mostly effective, puzzle of a story, Seven Down tells the story of a failed plot carried out by various sleeper agents, all employees of the same hotel and all unaware of each other’s affiliation with The Company. The book is arranged as a series of transcripts of recording with the agents after the plot, some a few years after the day, some merely a few hours. I loved getting bits and pieces of how everyone’s various stories connect in small and major ways, slowly putting together what when wrong and why. Much of the hows and whys are opaque, which adds to the intrigue. I was actually disappointed at the end, when the exactly goal of the plot is laid out plainly. It’s all a bit rote and cliched and really undercuts the rest of the book. I’d have been happier not knowing what it was that they were trying to accomplish and why.

Helmuth von Moltke said way back in 1871 that no plan survives first contact with the enemy. (In a nutshell.) But we learn in David Whitton’s fascinating novel, Seven Down, that the people putting together the plan should maybe also take a closer look at the folks they’ve engaged to carry out the plan. No matter how well designed the plan, no matter how perfectly timed each piece, no matter how carefully placed the players, someone is going to screw things up.

The prologue to Seven Down sets things up for us. A mysterious company set up an elaborate plan to kill a man at a fancy hotel in London, Ontario. More than two years later, an agent of that company has finally compiled his report about what went wrong. This report contains transcripts of interviews and interrogations with a series of sleeper agents who were placed at the King William to take out the company’s target. And it’s apparent from the first of these that the sleeper agents are…not the best choices for the job. Reading the transcripts of conversations (and the interrogation) revealed people who are worried about a missed period, are on a lot of cocaine, are bleeding out from a gunshot, are clinically paranoid, and so on. There are so many human flaws that I started to try and match the characters to the seven deadly sins. (I almost got seven matches.)

This book is a stunning piece of writing. Structurally, it’s brilliant. The way that the beginning and the end of Seven Down echo each other is so amazing that I desperately want someone else to read this book so that I gush over Whitton’s writing with them. But the characters! The characters! Each character has such a distinct voice that I stopped trying to figure out what was supposed to happen on that messy, violent day at the hotel and focused completely on how the conversations let me into the characters’ heads so deeply that I felt like a fly in the wall of a therapist’s office. I could see how all of their busy thoughts made the company’s plan go to hell before it even happened. Honestly, it’s a wonder anyone at that company even has a job anymore.

It’s kind of funny that I read this book so closely on the heels of John Connolly’s The Nameless Ones. The two books have me thinking about thrillers. Plans don’t always work, either because of someone getting outsmarted or secrets are revealed or because of general chaos. Human flaws play a part, but never in the ways that I saw in Seven Down. None of the characters were the usual ethically tortured, world-weary figure that I usually see in thrillers. The characters in Seven Down are ordinary people, who thought they were signing up for something important when they chose to be sleeper agents only to realize that, when it came down to it, they were not the right people for the job.

Definitely a different type of book. I wasn’t sure what I was in for. I really enjoyed the interview form of the novel.

This is an intriguing novel, which is written completely in the form of transcribed interviews. Those interviewed all worked in the same hotel and were sleeper agents, just waiting for the trigger phrase, which meant they left the life they had built up and embarked on 'Operation Fear and Trembling.' We learn pretty soon that this operation was not a complete success as we hear from those in reservations, engineering, catering, courtesy, security, management and systems.

The interviews range from 2022 to 2024 and take place immediately after the operation to years after the event. This really is an entertaining read and the characters all have a unique voice, as they reflect on what the operation meant for them - whether they were excited, nervous, in denial that the time had come, or almost relieved. It is good to read something different and this is certainly a very unique novel.

I received a copy of this book from the publisher, via NetGalley, for review.

There's a lot going in this story, and I enjoyed it. I stayed engaged in this unique story that is well told, This is not a perfect book, but it has merit and will likely be enjoyed by scifi fans.

Thanks very much for the free review copy!!

I received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Actual Rating = 3.5, rounded up to 4

Y'all, this is such a weird book and I mean that as a compliment.

Seven Down tells the story of multiple sleeper agents, who all work at the same hotel and are largely unaware of all the other agents surrounding them. This is an epistolary-esque novel, told in a series of interviews. While I received an ARC of the e-book, I would actually love to experience this as an audiobook. I think the interview structure would translate really well to that format.

Seven Down – an excellently written novel. Seven individuals employed at a hotel in Toronto, all waiting for a clue, a specific phrase on social media, which will contain instructions for them to do something. Each employee/agent has their own part to play to bring the mission to completion. None of them know about each other. However, in each case, things happen and the operation goes wrong. This book focuses on the interviews with each of the operatives to find out about the events leading up to the botched operation and the Company behind the operation tries to piece together what happened.

The writing is excellent, I really enjoyed the interviews. In the final interview, the reader finds out what happened.

A completely different albeit a very enjoyable read for me. Thank you to NetGalley, Dundurn Press and the author for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I was immediately intrigued by this story when I first read the summary. Unfortunately it was much different than I expected. The story is told in an interview format and is quirky and witty. Although it was well written and the voice is unique, that voice remained the same for every character. It felt like one person being interviewed the entire book. Each character interviewed is evasive and rambles on. Sure, it expands upon the character and their traits but it slowed down the book and made reading it tiresome after a while. Halfway through I was just over it. I would still recommend others read the book at it was well written, but I wouldn’t read it again.

This book was good and brought to mind the Appeal by Janice Hallett in the way that it was set out and the writing style and the content, so if you like that then this is one for you to check out. It was crazy, creepy and funny at times, an enjoyable read.

I wanted more than anything to like this book, but I didn’t. I wasn’t a fan of the narrative and the formatting of the e-book makes it very difficult to follow. I initially thought that this just wasn’t bedtime reading but it turns out it just did not click with me.

Having said that, upon publication I will be on the hunt for a print copy in the hope that that will be a more enjoyable experience.