Whodunnit? Murder in Mystery Mansion by Anthony E. Zuiker

This is a whodunnit that is quite unlike most I've read. It starts with the butler (GIles) who is employed by some mysterious person. Then the guests come and no one can leave.

And like Then There Were None by Agatha Christie, they start dying one by one. Until the murderer and one other gust is left (that guest "wins"), which I guess is a huge difference from Then There Were None. But the whole murderer among the guests thing is the same.

After each murder, the remaining guests/victims are given the option of examining the corpse, the last know place of the victim or the crime scene. They then have to figure out how the victim was murdered. The one with the correct/closest to the truth theory gets to live, while the two lousiest detectives are "Scared" - so one of them will become the next victim.

What I liked about this book is that we got to see the book from the Giles' eyes. Most of the time, we see the book from either the victim, the detective or the murderer. The staff? Hardly ever.

Which is why the part I didn't like about this book was that after a while, it started alternating between the guests and Giles. The problem was that we are given a glimpse of all the guests, including the murderer.

Therein lies the main problem. The narrative is third-person, but it's not objective. Basically, it's impossible to guess who the murderer is - and that was really what fustrated me the most.

Lastly, there was this loose end which was introduced at the end and never tied up. At least I still don't understand what was going on with that. It's not a big deal, but if you like to have everything neatly tied up by the time the book ends, you may be a bit annoyed.

Disclaimer: I got this book from the publishers via NetGalley in exchange for a free and honest review.