I finally read Seven Down by David Whitton and I’m glad it was a short read. This novel is written in interview style and features hotel workers talking about a secret operation. I really liked the Toronto setting (and the mention of Vancouver) and the social media references of Twitter and TikTok but I found the humour lacking and the writing style not for me.

Seven people, seven interviews, seven points of view., one story. Seven Down is complex, dark and full of well-voiced characters with a generous smattering of humour which combine to make it an addictive read.

Seven ordinary hotel employees. Catering, Reservations, Management. Seven moles, waiting for years for a single code word, a trigger that will send them into action in a violent event that will end their dull lives as they know them.

The event has failed: the action was a disaster.

This was a fun, fast-paced, short, mystery-thriller. Whilst a fairly good character study, with clever writing by Whitton, it just left me a little meh. Still a good book, and would recommend if the premise sounds interesting :)

Thank you NetGalley and Dundurn Press for the eARC!

Couldn't get into it at all. Not sure if it was the format it was viewing in or the writing, the story, just wasn't ticking the boxes for me to continue

I really enjoyed the premise of this book and really enjoy satire. I liked that this book was essentially character driven and really liked the choice to unwind the story by placing them all in a series of interviews. I like that each of the agents had a backstory, however this also made the book a little more confusing as well because it was hard to keep it straight and to see where the story was going by the interactions and thinking about the actions of the characters as they are built upon.. I liked the first few interviews and was really invested, however by interview four I couldn't really tell you who did what and where the story was even going. There was all of this intricate groundwork to get to the ending just to be given something completely flat and dismissive. Thanks for the ARC, NetGalley. I definitely feel that this author is talented and I enjoyed the originality. of the piece and would like to see what this author comes up with in the gutre.

This book is very different from what I normally read so I'm not sure how to review this one. Its definitely an interesting concept and I found most parts of the story intriguing. There was some parts I skimmed through because it just felt there was no reason for it to be in the book. I think I was waiting for something at the end that I didnt get so I was alittle bit disappointed at the ending. I think it was just too much for my brain to handle and I probably missed the point of this book.

I enjoyed the different perspectives and the puzzle box aspect of the book where you get to slowly connect all of the individual strands to what happened. It was a quick read but I never felt truly invested into the book. A very original idea that I do not think was perfectly executed.

I was excited by the blurb of this book. I love a random plotline, and this promised that to me. The story is told in multiple voices, over different times, and it swings a little around in time before it finds its footing.
I did not like the book as a whole, but there are parts that are done well, and if other readers like those parts even more than I did, they will really enjoy the book. The story is told in a sequence of interviews. The date, time, and interviewer all hold the key to the actual information trying to get through to us.
The core of the narrative, the event(s) that all the interviews circle around, happens in 2022 Toronto. It addresses the post-pandemic situation (although now having reached 2022, I do not know how much of it will feel plausible). That is about all I will say because the twists and turns that the narrative takes is the main reason I saw it all the way through, hoping for that aha moment. There were some that were close, and the writing made it interesting. Some voices were more distinct than others; a few swore more frequently and unnecessarily than the others.
Overall, it is an intriguing concept that did not entirely work for me. This is a completely personal issue, and I think people willing to try 'different' storylines should give it a shot. The central point that had me reacting this way is a thing I cannot mention because it involves one of those twists that I thought might work for a lot of people. I just felt there was too much of one thing.
I almost gave up at one point, but I am glad I read it to the end because the why of a larger question was addressed only towards the very end, and a huge chunk of the book made more sense only after that reveal!
I received an ARC thanks to NetGalley and the publishers but the review is entirely based on my own reading experience.

Thank you to NetGalley and Dundurn Press for a digital copy of this book.

The description really peaked my interest and was looking forward to reading it. But, it didn’t hook me and I kept picking it up, putting it down, and then time passed and I still haven’t finished it. Unfortunately, this was the book for me But, don’t go by this review, because it got many positive ones.

3 stars, rounded down from 3.5

I’m not really sure how to review this book! It’s quirky, for sure, and made me laugh in a lot of places, but in the end, it wasn’t really a satisfying read. The premise is that a complicated assassination plot has been disastrously unsuccessful and we gradually get to know all the little “cogs in the machine” who had a part in the final stage of the operation, all of them workers at a fancy Toronto hotel, who had been recruited several years before the failed event. None of them are aware of the existence of any of the others. The book consists of a number of transcribed interviews, most of which tend to ramble on with lots of digressions, although the digressions were often the most interesting parts of the interviews!

This is a very original novel and it definitely kept my interest.

Thank you to NetGalley and Dundurn Press/Rare Machines for the opportunity to read an advance readers copy of this book. All opinions are my own.

Fans of the book Anxious People - run and get this book immediately! There were similar quirky vibes with a colorful cast of characters that was really fun to read.

For me though, one thing prevented me from absolutely loving this book: I didn't feel each character had their own distinct voice. When I'd pick the book back up, I always had to flip back a few pages and remember who was being interviewed. With that, each character also went way off on tangents during their interviews and had me getting a bit lost at times.

Despite that, I still enjoyed the book and it was a fun read that can be read in a few sittings. Definitely looking forward to what this author writes next!

Published by Dundurn Press/Rare Machines on November 30, 2021

In 2010, several employees of a hotel in Toronto are recruited by an organization they only know as “the company” and trained for a mission. In 2022, they finally receive the instructions to which they have been trained to respond. One of them creates a diversion in the hotel lobby, although not quite the diversion that was intended. Another retrieves a container of chutney from kitchen storage in the basement and takes it to an upper floor. A bellhop swaps clothes with a man in the elevator who takes the chutney from the woman who retrieved it. Events pile upon events. Each person narrates his or her role to interviewers/interrogators after Operation Fear and Trembling has gone awry. The story is told through their interview transcripts.

Through most of Seven Down, the reader must guess at the significance of the characters’ actions. What is the mysterious organization that recruited the hotel members? What is Operation Fear and Trembling? How and why did it fail? What were the consequences of that failure? What will happen to the participants after their interviews are finished? Some of those questions go unanswered, although the reader is given sufficient information to imagine a variety of answers. A summative document at the end supplies some missing pieces. It also makes an observation that the reader will surely appreciate: Operation Fear and Trembling was a needlessly complex means of attaining an end that could have been achieved much more easily. No wonder it went tits up.

As the reader waits for the missing pieces to be supplied, the meandering interviews reveal the personalities of the recruited employees. Leonard Downey, the bellhop who swapped clothes in the elevator, was an anarchist before he took his hotel job. At the time of the interview, he’s being held captive on an island. As one might expect from an anarchist (or maybe from anyone who is being held captive), he's far from cooperative. But he’s also quite funny as he demands cigarettes and dodges uncomfortable questions and tries to justify his decision to set a police car on fire during a G7 protest and complains that, given his experience with mayhem, the company didn’t give him a more active role than trading clothes with someone on an elevator.

Kathy from Catering, the middle-aged woman who delivered the chutney, had a sexual encounter with another character while they were both carrying out their roles, although neither knew that the other was involved in the operation. Their different perspectives on who initiated the encounter and how it went are amusing. One suspects it was initiated by the woman since she repeatedly propositions her interviewer while complaining about her lackluster sex life.

Rhonda handles security in the hotel. She epitomizes the paranoid members of society who think vaccinations will turn them into zombies. She’s convinced that heavy metals in vaccines have turned her into a walking 5G receiver. An officious and self-involved hotel manager and a systems operator who places the company ahead of her family contribute their own quirks to the dysfunctional cast of characters.

The elaborate plot of Seven Down is really just an excuse to bring together a group of troubled people who gravitate toward the company in the hope that it will supply meaning or excitement or a purpose that their lives are missing. Apart from allowing the reader to occupy the minds of its all-too-human characters, Seven Down offers some observations about humankind that are either perceptive or obvious, depending on how much attention you’re paying to the world. A character notes, for instance, that the pandemic “swept its ultraviolet wand over the earth, exposing for all to see the douchebags and sociopaths who had overrun and debased it.” A riff on “disaster capitalists” who hope to exploit the next human tragedy is also worth considering. “Plagues are the future so let’s use them to make money” is a problematic philosophy.

As a dark comedy, Seven Down delivers more chuckles than belly laughs. Still, the characters have attitude and the plot is too unpredictable to permit a reader to lose interest.

RECOMMENDED

Original and inventive, this quirky novel about a failed assassination attempt is narrated thought transcripts of the debriefing interviews with the seven sleeper agents involved in the plot. Each has a distinct voice and each has a distinct back story to relate and each had a distinct part to play in the foiled attempt. They were all employees in a big hotel where the attempt was made. Overall I enjoyed the novel very much although I found the ending rather unsatisfactory and after a while the voices seemed to merge into one another. The book is set in Toronto in the near future and the sinister undertones to the interviews are well handled, making the assassination attempt, if somewhat amateurish, all too realistic and unsettling. An enjoyable and entertaining read, satirical for sure, but with a serious contemporary edge to it. Well worth reading.

my expectations were kinda shaky and "eeehh" but the format of this book was so unique and fun! like a lighter and more glib evelyn hardcastle

Witty, dark, and satirical - Seven Down is a unique character study with a gut punching effect.

I would recommend diving into this blind, but all you need to know are – Seven hotel employees, a secret trigger code and a mission that fails spectacularly – all these lead to the company’s investigation of this fiasco – starting with the interviews of the involved staff.

The format of this book and the writing style pulled me in pretty quickly. Though it’s all very perplexing to begin with, as we hear the narrative of every protagonist, the plot and the events leading up to the debacle start becoming clear.

Whitton does a great job of maintaining a high level of secrecy and suspense all the way till the end. The plot is cleverly constructed and surprisingly, it wasn’t one bit predictable. Speculating anything and suspecting anybody was hard, which kept me turning the pages furiously with curiosity, to find out which of them pulled the plug and why.

I loved how Whitton explores the kind of psychological ramifications, this event brings upon each of the characters. However, I felt there was a bit too much of meaningless ramblings which caused me to lose interest at times.

The storyline deals with some serious subject matters such capitalism and drug abuse. But at the same time, there is a good balance with the snarky remarks and humor filled banter between the interviewer and the interviewee.

After some bizarre drama and crazy turn of events, the ending left me feeling – “aaaahh!”.

Overall, this was unlike any other book I’ve read. Short at 200 pages, it certainly has a lasting impact and makes you think about what you just read!

Thanks NetGalley and Dundurn press for providing me with this ARC in exchange of an honest review.

A deeply character driven book that is quite quirky. What a novel concept to write the book in transcripts from the interviews trying to determine why their mission has failed. I can see the comparison to Backman with all of the quirky characters.

This is definitely an original concept and best read without reading about it first. Sit back and enjoy the ride these characters take you on.

3.5 stars, rounded to 4

A relatively quick read, Seven Down engages you right from the start. It's a sort of epistolary novel, told through debriefing files of a political/corporate conspiracy manipulation gone terribly wrong. And it starts off with just about the most emotional character - full of regret, uprooted from a life she sold years ago. The text was emotional and shook me quite a lot from the start.

The story is told in a similar manner to Fredrick Backman's Anxious People - but where that one is a "realism through humor" kind of tale, this one's more of a "realism through tragedy" sort of one. Definitely reads as literary, and you need to concentrate, as the story has been especially mixed up in the timelines. The characters digress a lot, so you don't just get told simply about the mission they had, or the things that happened during that fateful day - no, you also learn about them as people - their thoughts, regrets and how they dealt with everything that happened after the event.

There is a sort of dark humor in this tale - it does have a sort of jokey manner, especially with some characters, but even then, it's dark and tragic. It's meant to make you laugh, but only in a depraved sort of way. And you'll definitely be sad after you finish it.

Seven Down makes you... Feel ever so much uncomfortable, as well. And I think it's meant to. Not only that, some of the characters, the way they tell their stories, their regrets and how they've literally sold out their lives, it broke my heart. The loved ones they had to leave, all of that felt to me like that fairytale, where a King or Queen promises the witch their firstborn because before they have one, it seems an easy bargain, but then after the time comes and they have to make good on the promise, they realize it was the worst decision of their lives. This story goes on in a similar fashion. It was really sad to read those bits, and I had to keep taking breaks from the book because of that. But not all the stories are like that, and pretty much all the characters are meant to seem quite unlikeable, so when they overshare their regrets and mistakes, you just feel uncomfortable, and that's the way the book must've been intended.

It's also interesting how most of the these characters don't seem to know they were pretty much all of them embroiled in the same scheme. It's all like a big stupid stage of theatre going on, and at times it seems more like a circus, really. It adds to the uncomfortable feeling. But also, it's unsettling in the sense, that you start wondering how much of this kind of thing might actually be going on? You think of all the incidents that have happened over the years - the toxins in the little town who took out unsuspecting victims, was that in Ireland? Was it something like... this? Could this possibly be, not really JUST fiction..? Profoundly uncomfortable to think about. And also probably someone's reality.

Seven Down is hopefully just fiction, but... It's not a book you'll easily forget for sure.

I thank the publisher for giving me a free copy of the ebook in exchange to my honest review. This has not affected my opinion.

Seven Down is an intelligent novel written in the form of the interview transcripts with the sleeper agents. Cleverly, the contents page of the actual book is the contents page of the folder containing the transcripts. A prologue takes the form of a letter between two colleagues which informs us that the interview transcripts have been assembled out of chronological order, and advises paying attention to the date on each transcript. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I can honestly say that this book is completely unlike any other I have ever read.

It is told in the form of interview transcripts with 7 sleeper agents who were involved in a failed assassination attempt. All of them were working in a hotel and were completely unaware of each others' involvement. It was a fascinating read and I enjoyed learning the agents' individual stories; each one was peppered with snippits of information about the day of 'Operation Fear and Trembling'. As the book went on, I was able to piece the stories together and try to work out how everything fitted into the day of the Operation.

However, although there was lots that I did enjoy, there were also reasons why this book wasn't one of my favourites. I found it a little confusing that the interviews all took place at different times - some were many years apart. I also feel that the book left me with more questions than answers and I'm not sure that the end summed things up enough for me.

Overall, a unique book and possibly one that I would read again to make sure I didn't miss anything.

My thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for sending me the ARC in return for an honest review.

The introductory note from the author in a work of fiction is, quite often, something I skim over or forget immediately after reading. However, David Whitton's fun blurb on the weirdness of secret services operations was a perfect introduction to this book all about an operation that goes horribly wrong in a number of small ways. It had me ready for a Burn After Reading-type novel, and what followed didn't disappoint.

Seven Down is a series of interviews with seven different operatives working at a hotel where an assassination should have been carried out, puppet-mastered by the mysterious 'Company'. Something small and stupid (or big and stupid) appears to have altered the operation in each account, until the reader is shown just what a clusterfuck the operation turned out to be.

I'm very fond of multiple-narrative books, and I really enjoyed the different voices and different situations of each of the operatives. Taking up a similar format and repeating the same story seven times, it would be easy for the novel to become repetitive. But the different environments, the different ways the operatives are treated, gave enough flavour to the narrative to keep it interesting.

The real fun of the book comes in piecing together the total story of what really happened. Each account knows only their portion, with no awareness even of who else was an operative carrying out instructions on that day. We are therefore given the story in Ikea-style flat-pack, which it is the reader's job to slot together. I personally was left with one or two screws and funny wooden pegs left over, not entirely sure which hole they should go in or what they were for, but this might be because I was reading the story in a piecemeal way over a long period.

Seven Down is an interesting exercise in butterfly effects -- seeing how one small mishap leads to a larger one, until the whole thing snowballs into a disaster. The writing is engaging, and the formatting of the story carefully thought out. I really enjoyed reading it.