DNf’d at 25%. I wanted to love this book so much given the synopsis caught my attention very quickly.

One thing for me are the chapters are dreadfully long.

I may come back to this book ant a later time and give it another try.

A pharmaceutical company is convinced they can cure serial killers by removing a part of their brain and giving them intense therapy. After claiming 5 such individuals have been rehabilitated, they decide for a press conference with them in a chalet in the Alaskan wilderness. Immediately, bodies start turning up, and they're left to wonder who's responsible.

*****

This was one of the weirdest structured books I've ever read. The prologue was so long and rambling that I wondered why it wasn't just titled Chapter 1. It had so many side characters and views for seemingly no reason. I can say with full honesty that this is the first time I've ever had to write out character names, their roles, and their relations in order to be able to read a book. At 17% in, there were over 25 separate characters that were constantly brought up, sometimes with first name, sometimes last name, sometimes with full name. As someone whose brain is wired to have vivid recall and detailed scenes play out in my mind as I read, I found the way this was laid out to be baffling. There was no consistency in how characters were described. Sometimes there was hair and eye colour, sometimes height, weight and body type, sometimes how they walked or groomed themselves. It left incomplete pictures so the individuals were just a jigsaw puzzle of random descriptors.

From there, we deal with pages and pages of pure dialogue, juxtaposed with walls of descriptions. There was no way to take information in that stuck. It was a mishmash of too much and not enough, all at the same time. There were so many characters that the author couldn't truly dive into each one. Everything was surface level, with corny, stilted, and dry interactions. The characters were so underdeveloped that they felt like how the author thought people would talk who held these roles and descriptions, and not as people first who happen to have these life roles. It was unrealistic at minimum and deeply flawed at best. To top that, the author seems to have an underlying distain for women. At no moment were they brave, intelligent, or insightful. Instead, we saw them be overly emotional to the point of hysterics, shrill, unprofessional, conniving, naive, snarky, and morally corrupt. He treats Gia Koh's drag character poorly as well, as it's so stereotypical and over sexualized to the point that it's offensive.

From there, the answer to the mystery itself was practically spoon-fed to us. By 20% is was blatantly obvious, and even then it was made obvious again at 50% when we get a scene from the perspective of the killer, and then repeatedly shown in clear ways who it was from then on, especially with the poetry. This made the entire book evident about its attempts to misdirect, which ended up causing the pacing to drag.

There were also consistency issues, where an entire scene was presented where one character proposed to another (despite multiple murders occurring over the few days prior), yet these characters were introduced as already engaged in the prologue of the novel. I'm not sure how that got missed, but it was jarring.

In the end, the book was cheesy and overdone, and the climax just wasn't climactic - it was obvious to the point of being lazy. The epilogue styled in "what happened next" was strange, and I could see what the author was trying to do, but it was a rambling mess that continued to drag out the book into a flat finish.

*****

Thank you, NetGalley, and Dreameyrie Publishing. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Despite the mixed reviews I find this a fairly enjoyable read. Loved the atmosphere, the claustrophobic/snowstorm-bound trope. Lots of complex characters and their sinister motives each one being more twisted than the last. Reminds me of No Exit which I also enjoyed.

Wow, what did I just read. This was a a great story. Very original and had me on my toes. Strong writing and well written plot.

Wasn’t aware this was about Covid. Covid should not be a topic of fiction as we all lost so much during this time. Family members, community members , nurses and healthcare providers and many elderly unable to get care for devastation from this virus.

DNF'd at 42%. While I found the premise of the book to be interesting, I really struggled with the writing style. I felt that the author was telling, more than showing, the events as they unfolded. I also found the writing style to be a bit redundant for my tastes. The plot was definitely interesting, but it just wasn't enough to hold my attention throughout the remainder of the book. With some editing, I do think that this could be a fantastic read for readers that enjoy books with a cozy mystery feel.

Because I DNF'd the book, I have given this book a 3 star rating in fairness to the author.

Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

What do you get when you mix the icy tension of Murder on the Orient Express, the ruthless family drama of Game of Thrones, and the eerie dangers of unchecked science like Jurassic Park? A heart-pounding, twist-filled thriller you won’t be able to put down.

The Murders in the Endicott Hotel plunges readers into a snowed-in Alaskan hotel, where billionaire Daniel Larch has gathered an eclectic, dangerous group—including five supposedly reformed serial killers. When Larch himself is found dead, chaos ensues. With a blizzard trapping everyone inside, a relentless detective begins unraveling secrets, poetic clues, and bloody betrayals as the body count rises.

What I loved:
❄️ The claustrophobic, snowstorm-bound setting—it amps up the suspense to chilling heights.
🌀 Complex characters and sinister motives, each more twisted than the last.
🖋️ The poetic crime notes! A clever and haunting touch that had me playing detective alongside Walter Churchfield.
🔬 The exploration of science and morality—can true evil ever be “reformed”?

This is a locked-room mystery on steroids, blending high-stakes drama, corporate greed, and murder into an unputdownable package. Perfect for fans of intricate whodunits and psychological thrillers.

📖 The Murders in the Endicott Hotel is a must-read for anyone who loves high-tension mysteries that keep you guessing until the very last page.

The writing could to good with a little bit of editing but the premise was fun and innovative. I would like the author to have a little more faith in his readers to actually not describe everything very bluntly. Thank you to NetGalley, the publisher and the author for the free eARC in exchange for my honest opinions.

2 1/2 stars. This was a mixed bag for me. The premise is very interesting: Five serial killers have undergone surgery which expert claim have so changed the person they are no longer who they once were and as a result have been released from prison. Now, the convicted serial killers, VIPs of the company responsible for the medical procedure, and PR people are flown to a luxurious but isolated hotel where they become stranded during a snowstorm and the killings begin... Is it one of the serial killers or someone new?

I love a murder story set with a group isolated in a snow storm. A classic and there is so much potential there. This story takes advantage of some of that. And I like the former detective who takes over to establish some order during the chaos. There is good tension as the danger torques up. However, there is also too many characters that are not distinguishable from each other, repetitive phrases, being told things instead of shown them through the narrative, and editing problems.

In conclusion, I have conflicting feelings about this. Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest opinion.

this was bad. like, bad-bad. i kept giving the author the benefit of the doubt and they didn’t deserve it. there is a character, gia ho, who is described to dress like a woman but uses he/him pronouns (they said this in the first paragraph they spoke). however, it is clear that they feel like a woman and are a woman, but the ‘man in their head’ tells them they’re a man. so two things going on: someone who is a transgender female and has a dissociative disorder. it is never said she has a dissociative disorder, just that she has a man in her head, which is a red flag already. she is also exclusively referred to with he/him pronouns. i was ready to call this just a mistake and the author just didn’t do enough research. but. (i am spoiling these only for other readers. ) <spoiler>she is the killer the whole time. so essentially the author is using her dissociative disorder and her being trans as a scare tactic, like so many others do. and it’s a cop out, one of the serial killers being the killer? really? for fucks sake. </spoiler> this author clearly did 0 research on what he was creating these characters to be. seriously, it’s not hard for one of the multiple psychiatric / neurological doctors to mention the words ‘dissociative disorder’ is it? nor should it be hard to not treat trans characters like monsters

This had such a great premise. 5 serial killers who have supposedly been "cured" are brought to a remote hotel in Alaska and people start dying. I found most of it very fun to read. The best thing about a locked room mystery is that there are limited suspects. This one had a large number of people staying at this hotel, which has its own problems with the locals. There is no really good reason for them to be there as opposed to a million other places, but this is how we get the locked room! So, I loved the campiness of it. I love that the original victim is so easy to dislike that your like, "Yeah, that's a good person to die." Churchfield is a little flatly written and could use a good edit. The whole thing gets a little repetitive. It is full of action, though. Take a day. It was fun.

It's unfortunate the book declined towards the end, or it would have been a 5-star. I actually really enjoyed it up until then. While it's a cosy murder-mystery, the premise and setup hyped me up from the very beginning, but let me down towards the end. I think the biggest disappointment is that amongst the 20+ characters/suspects that I was able to keep track of, I expected there to be a much more satisfying conclusion to the murderer, given all the intermingling and convincing motives. To have such a simplified conclusion seemed redundant. The numbers could have been edited in this case. There was also some unnecessary transphobic sentiment that didn't fare well. I think if the book concentrated more on each personality, their background, their thoughts and motives, and less on discussions on "who's the killer?" It may have felt more rounded and intelligent. I also saw faults in some of Churchfield's decisions (oftentimes Churchill?) - in that he should have held a vigil from the beginning. He should have searched and stripped every room for evidence from the beginning. Not later on after several murders. Instead, he left the situation go out of control, he let people do as they wish. And people be stupid, they be soaking in the hot tub alone at night.. or taking solitary swims in the pool. Or proposing to each other during a murder investigation while everyone is terrified??? What?? Unlikely behaviours.

Anyway it's 4 stars because I loved the setup, the characters overall, the atmosphere, the psychoanalysis and political tensions.

The author presents us with an interesting story, which mixes the whodunnit style with the locked room and weaves a social dilemma: is it possible to rehabilitate a serial killer to reintegrate him into society as a productive member?
A major pharmaceutical company develops a protocol to rehabilitate serial killers that includes amygdala ablation and psychological support. This procedure was applied to five serial killers.
To celebrate the success of the protocol and make it known to the world, the company organizes a meeting/press conference in an isolated and remote hotel in Alaska. Just as the conference is about to begin, the president of the company, Daniel Larch, is poisoned.
From that moment on, a series of murders begins and questions abound: who did it? Was it one of the killers? Who will be next? And the readers ask ourselves: how will this story end?
The premise is very interesting, but it becomes a bit repetitive. There are too many characters and not all of them are well developed, which makes it difficult to identify with any of them. But, anyway, a good story to pass the time.
I thank the author and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this book.
The opinion I have expressed above is based solely on what I think and feel about this book

This mystery has a good story with 5 serial killers apparently recovered isolated in a hotel with other people but unfortunately the characterization of some characters borders on the offensive

Furthermore, the novel needs some editing

Sadly I couldn't enjoy the mystery with so many not so subtle prejudices from the author, unconscious or not

Thanks to the publisher for making it available on NetGalley

This is a really cool concept and it has great potential, but it feels like it needs a hard edit or two before it is ready for prime time... The writing is, as others have noted, very repetitive and at times feels very simplistic particularly for the high-concept story that wants to be told. There are a lot of characters and not a lot of distinguishing characteristics to them, and keeping everyone straight was a bit more work than I wanted it to be.

There are some really great thought-provoking ideas here, but I felt like they were getting lost in the endless factual statements rather than descriptive ones. This wasn't a great fit for me unfortunately - I struggled to stay engaged almost from the beginning.

So this book started off a little confusing, the prologue was interesting. It did all end up making sense, the quotes of famous poets and all. There were many people and many stories to follow along but it made sense by the end.
I enjoyed the mystery and the amount of suspects and progression of the killer in the book. By the 5th kill I had a good idea but the twists had me second guessing. I enjoyed this book and the epilogue was nice closure.
Thank you NetGalley, the Author and the Publisher Dreameyrie for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

In this locked room murder mystery, a murderer is on the loose. The question is whether it is one of the five, hopefully, reformed serial killers or one of the other guests who have come for the press event.

I thought the premise of this story was pretty well done and the story presents a large cast of characters which are available as victims and as suspects. I will say most of them are pretty unlikeable so I guess I wasn't mad that a lot of them met their end.

The scene opens as we learn a biomedical company believes they have "cured" five serial killers by performing a specific surgery to alter their personalities. The Press event is to celebrate the rehabilitation of these individuals and their release back into society. However, as the press release gets started, Daniel Larch, the CEO, begins his speech but falls out dead in front of the group. Though it could have been a health issue, the group believes it was poisoning. As the story continues, more and more people meet their end in more and more gruesome ways.

All in all, not a bad murder mystery though I would say the cast of characters is a bit too large and I found the premise to be a bit flimsy. I would have loved to offer suggestions and help iron out a few of the weaker spots but I was entertained.

A group of serial killers gets a new kind of Lobotomy from a big pharmaceutical corporation. They are put into a hotel with the CEO and his family, handful of social media people/news, a senator, and psychologists. Before they had to the hotel for the PR tour the CEO is caught having an affair with his attorney. All hell breaks loose at the hotel when murders keep happening.

This book is like Clue in the Cecil Hotel duringAmerican Horror Story. It was ok! The scene with the CEO and his attorney then the other with the Murderer and his gun were honestly just uncomfortable to read. It was weird and really didn't fit into the ambiance of the book that the author established for the hotel. Also, the book tended to drag. It was already a shorter book, but it was hard to keep my attention.

Thanks to Dreameyrie and Netgalley for this ARC. This is not the usual type of book i read but thought i'd give it a go. I thought i was really good until the end. I was very disappointed in who the killer was and felt the ending had been rushed.

The Murders in the Endicott Hotel follows 5 reformed serial killers that have received amydalotomies (removal of the amygdala) in order to cure their want/need to kill again. When a biomedical company celebrates hiring a private hotel in remote Alaska, things quickly start going wrong. Murders begin to happen, and it is left to ex-detective Churchfield to solve the cases that begin piling up. This gives Thriller, Isolation, and Anxiety within its riveting pages.

As someone who typically does not enjoy murder mysteries, I found myself riveted and engaged until the very end of these pages. The writing style was methodical, and the execution was incredible. The clues are there for people to solve the crimes. But they are done in a way that isn’t obvious until it is revealed. I enjoyed the pacing of this book. While it explained things very well, it was also snappy and to-the-point. I did not feel that the book was either too long or too short.
Furthermore, the editing was very well done, aside from a couple of spelling errors and repeating phrases. There were a lot of repeating phrases that I thought didn’t need to be there. For example: ‘The killer (did this). The killer (did that).”

While the book was listed as a horror, I would consider it square in the Murder Mystery category. It followed the structure of a mystery and, while there were some moments that depicted a horrific scene, the overall writing and execution of the book was not a horror.

I would highly recommend this book to be picked up by anyone that enjoys mystery, or would like to explore the mystery genre. Likewise I think this book would be perfect for those that enjoy detective fiction.

I very much enjoyed my time reading this book. I was engaged, interested, and trying to play detective myself through the pages! I guessed the killer fairly early on in the story, but the way the clues were handed to Churchfield and how he solved them was done brilliantly. For these reasons I have given this a 4.25 star rating!

Thank you to Netgalley and Dreameyrie for the Advanced Readers Copy (ARC) of this book. All opinions are my own.