Bit of explaining first - LAST ONE TO LEAVE and FIND US are available as stand-alone ebooks / novellas. They are also available together in printed form under the title FOOL ME TWICE. I read the two separate novellas, but will combine the review here.
Starting out with LAST ONE TO LEAVE - it's a murder mystery set within a reality competition. Which frankly, given that all reality shows border on criminal in my eyes, worked before I'd even started. The idea of this one is that there are seven complete strangers competing to win a massive clifftop mansion. By ensuring that they have at least one hand in contact with part of the house at all times. Last one to lose touch, wins. When 36 hours in, a contestant is murdered, the rest of the group start to realise it's less "last one to lose touch of the house" and more "last one breathing". Shenanigans between the contestants is explored, as are they within the organising group - a bunch of YouTube wannabe's who are quite possibly in way over their heads.
This was fun, quite thrilling, fast paced and crazy. The plot was cute, the characterisations brilliant and I still loathe reality tv.
The other novella, FIND US, is about a couple of kids who vanish one day between home and school, with only a nursing home providing some potential witnesses. Police are baffled and pretty ineffectual, and their tiger mother is panic struck, particularly by the words "Find Us" scrawled in blood beside a discarded backpack at the scene. She's determined, committed and desperate to find her two kids, but what she does find is not at all what you'd expect. There are hints through this one about all not being quite as it seems, but again, the breakneck pace, and the sheer audacity of the plotting in this one is something else indeed.
Benjamin Stevenson is an author who seems hell-bent on twisting conventions until they plead for mercy. Even in novella format he's able to set expectations and then stomp them into the ground. Love his work, thoroughly enjoyed these two eBooks.
Last One To Leave
How far will they go to win the prize?
Seven strangers are invited to compete to win a clifftop mansion. The rules are each contestant must have at least one hand in contact with one part of the house at all times. The last one to take their hand off, wins the house. Then, after 36 hours, a contestant is murdered. And soon they start to realise that it may not be the last person to leave the house that wins it, it may be the last person alive. A locked room mystery where the door is open, but no-one wants to walk through it.
Last One to Leave was originally released as an Audible Original, and is also available in a 2-in-1 print book called Fool Me Twice.
Find Us
There is a small yellow backpack – contents strewn around it, abandoned on a suburban footpath. There are the tracks of tyres coming to an end at a crippled stop sign.
Anyone walking past can feel the prickle on the back of their necks that tells them something happened a vehicle careening to a halt., a child’s backpack left in a hurry. Then they see two words, hastily scrawled on the sidewalk. Written in blood.
FIND US.
Find Us was originally released as an Audible Original, and is also available in a 2-in-1 print book called Fool Me Twice.
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