Member Reviews
Notes on a Murder by B.P. Walter is a psychological thriller set in Greece.
What if you are invited to a dinner party at a luxurious villa and during that dinner your host makes you an offer. At the dinner party someone has committed a horrific crime and you have the possibility to kill that person and get away with it with no consequence. What would you do?
We are following Oliver in this past and present story. What happens when the choices he made a long time ago is starting to resurface.
We the reader are taken on a ride full of twists and turns in this dark story and we are hit with moral dilemmas. I did like the short chapters, it made this a fast read.
Even though it was an interesting moral dilemma I have to say this was not a book of my taste.
I love books by B P Walter who is an autobuy author for me now so I was really looking forward to reading this! This was quite a slow burn thriller which took me a while to get into but I loved the build up of tension. This was a dark, twisty read that I enjoyed!
This is the second book I've read by BP Walter and I have really enjoyed both of them, I don't want to spoil the story by explaining the plot however I loved it.
B P Walter is a master at these slow burn thrillers that have you truly engrossed in the story to the very end. You can never truly predict this twists and turns the author will take you through which in my opinion makes it all the more fascinating!.
Special thanks to Netgalley and One More Chapter for the free copy of this book. The plot seemed interesting; however, it was not what I was expecting - unfortunately, it went a way that I just didn't seem to care for. I didn't care for the characters, the plot, what was at stake. In the end, I felt as if it were lack lusting.
One of the darkest books that I have read in some time, but I really enjoyed how deep the author was willing to go - and of course, the setting and set up were glamorous and escapist!
Notes on a Murder went very dark very quickly which I wasn't expecting based on the blurb. It was a pleasant surprise that, what looked on the surface like a fun holiday read, was actually very intense and covered some really disturbing topics. It was definitely a slow burn but I really enjoy a dual timeline mystery and the format worked perfectly for this story. There is a really strong message running through the story that the way your life will turn out can change in an instant based on one 'yes or no' choice, and again this was a really solid idea to use as the basis for this type of thriller. An interesting concept with a definite sense of unease which continues throughout the whole story.
Thank you HarperCollins and NetGalley
A great read, but a slow but interesting burn. I had trouble to start getting into this, but it eventually got me hooked.
Don't give up on this one.
Thank you to netgalley and the publisher for the ARC.
This was an interesting slow burn novel. I found myself having a hard time getting into it at the beginning but then it pulled me in and I was invested.
This author is really good at these slow burn mysterious thriller. You just never quite know what is going to happen next and how it will turn out.
I think this is another hit by this author, you just have to invest in the book.
Thank you Netgalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read this book for an honest review.
This book was a slow burn, All the characters were unpleasant. It was well written but disappointing.
2 stars
A dark, twisty thriller than will leave you wondering what you would have done had it been you. However, I found it hard to connect to the characters and felt like the book was lacking in some way.
I have read other books by this author and thoroughly enjoyed them, but I'm so sorry to say that this one missed the mark for me. I was expecting a thriller filled with tension, but this actually read more like literary fiction, which isn't a problem, however I wasn't invested in either the plot or the characters.
After finishing, I'm still not quite sure what the point of the plot was. Nothing much really happened in the beginning of the book and I struggled to see where the story was going to go. About mid-way through, it did start to get dark which was one of the things about the book I did like. It had its sinister moments which was what piqued my interest enough to keep going. However the conclusion of the plot felt weird to me and I was left with a feeling of "yeah, but why".
Although this was a short read, I would have liked some more character development. I didn't feel connected to any of them therefore I didn't particularly care about the dark things they were getting mixed up in. None of them were particularly likeable but I also think that's an unfair statement for me to make when I didn't really know anything about any of them.
As much as I was disappointed by this book, I have had a great time with this author's other work so it hasn't been enough for me to give up on them. I'm sure other people have had a great time with this book and I do still look forward to reading more stories from this author.
I loved THE DINNER GUEST by Walter so was excited to read another by him. I went into this blind + was not ready for such a dark plot. A story of infatuation, retribution + choices, this was a twisted, chilling + sinister plot spanning two timelines, twenty years apart and short chapters. The audio was brilliant— I listened this on a long dog walk + the amount of times I made involuntary ‘wtf’ faces was huge. This was tense + twisty read with disturbing characters— a solid thriller but one that didn’t quite leave me satisfied by the ending/grand reveal.
(3.5 rounded up to 4🌟)
I found it hard to connect to the characters on this one. It has a past ( 20 years ago) and now timeline. I have to be honest and say this book just didnt have the wow factor for me.
Amazing book!
I was thoroughly engaged throughout this book and I didn't want to put it down! The author captured my attention from the get go! Five stars from me :)
Having read all the other books by this author i was looking forward to this one, however i soon realised that comparing this one to previous in unfair, Did not enjoy and found very short and ungripping
A locked room thriller!
It’s twisty and exciting throughout! But be warned it does get dark towards the end (in comparison to the rest of the book). 📕
This was good and entertaining. It did turn a bit darker towards the end of the book. But it was twisty and good like I like my mysteries. It was good and I enjoyed it.
I just reviewed Notes on a Murder by B P Walter. #NetGalley
[NetGalley URL]
title and description of this book don't really give much away about the premise. They make it sound a little like a locked-room thriller, but in fact it's much more of a slow burn psychological story.
It's told through two timelines twenty years apart, from the perspective of Oliver. In the first timeline, he's on holiday with his parents when he meets Alistair and starts an intense summer fling, before the two are drawn into something deeper by a charismatic stranger who invites them to his isolated island villa for dinner with a twist.
In the present timeline, Oliver is at a wellness centre struggling with his demons, when he encounters someone from his past who he believed to be dead. Seamlessly shifting between past and present, Walter gradually unravels a complex plot.
Set against the idyllic Greek backdrop, there's an eerie underlying tension simmering beneath the surface of the story from the beginning and it doesn't let up throughout. The characters are mostly unlikeable but strangely fascinating, and there's something compulsive about the author's writing which meant that, even when the plot was moving slowly, I didn't want to put this book down.
I did question the authenticity of the characters' actions at times - but I think that was intentional. This book is about choices, it challenges its characters and the reader to see how easily someone can be pushed to extremes. A strange, dark and gripping read.
i liked the premise and it was an interesting read. However, I was not able to connect with the characters so I wasn’t very engaged
Many thanks to HarperCollins UK and to NetGalley for providing me with a galley in exchange for my honest opinion.