With its recently bolstered population in rapid decline, Decagon House descends into mistrust and fear. On the mainland, crucial history is revealed, even as somebody figures something out on the island. But has either fact come to light fast enough to help those trapped with a murderer?
Another strong volume of a great little mystery. If you enjoy watching a cast get bumped off while they slowly put together the pieces as you form your own crazy theories (I’m working off three currently), you could do much worse.
The driving force remains on the island, where two club members have already died and there’ll be one or two more bodies by the time this volume is finished. As expected, tension is at a peak, although some cooler heads are attempting to prevail.
When somebody grasps a key plot point, I really like the way it didn’t get spelled out - instead we get a spread of previous panels so you can try to work it out for yourself. I do rather like that little touch.
We also get some welcome insight into the night that might have provided the catalyst for this trap, though we have yet to hear the full thing and my suspicion is that when we do hear it there might be more added on later. Just saying.
Still, I do like a good ‘sins coming back on the sinners’ storyline and it definitely feels like the story has some revelations to come about the level of everybody’s involvement (despite five seconds of sympathy for the devil, Carr definitely feels like he’d shove his mother in front of a bus to save himself).
Back on land, Shimada and Doyle continue to misadventure and Shimada throws out enough darts to prove that he’s not entirely as laisser-faire as he might seem. I was hoping Doyle might take point, but Shimada is really the audience surrogate - detached, but interested, and working every angle.
My first complaint comes with the land segments - yes, it is Mark Complains About Recap Pages time. A summation of the mystery to this point would have been very helpful; the mainland team dives in expecting you to remember the complicated history uncovered to date. And, well, no.
Maybe if I was reading a chapter a week, but I’m not, and that did slightly blunt a big reveal here. I mean, it’s still really good (and suggests even more, but it might be too obvious), and if you’re binging this you won’t even notice, but I felt it left the intermittent reader in the dust.
For the island side, I wasn’t super thrilled with Agatha’s turn to the hysterical. I mean, yes, somebody cracking under stress should be expected, but this book is already thin on its female characters (Doyle saving the day in that respect, but she was a man in the novel…) so having her freak out could have been handled better.
Also, has nobody ever read And Then There Were None… before in this group? I don’t care if the victim lost a leg and an arm and half their skull - you always, always get a second opinion.
Ahem, just saying, I have theories, some more ridiculous than others. We’ll see how it all turns out, but I love this style of mystery and am super excited to see where we go to reach the end of this ride.
4 stars - yeah, it could use some polish here and there, but I have it on good authority that this one is playing it fair and that gives me plenty of incentive to just sit back and enjoy the remaining volume or two we have left.