Ink Ribbon Red - by Alex Pavesi

Book Synopsis

A wickedly plotted new thriller, in which a group of friends play a deadly game that unwraps a motive for murder, from Alex Pavesi, the author of The Eighth Detective

Anatol invites five of his oldest friends to his family home in the Wiltshire countryside to celebrate his thirtieth birthday. At his request, they play a game of his invention called Motive Method Death. The rules are simple: Everyone chooses two players at random, then writes a short story in which one kills the other.

Points are awarded for making the murders feel real. Of course, it's only natural for each friend to use what they know. Secrets. Grudges. Affairs. But once they've put it in a story, each secret is out. It's not long before the game reawakens old resentments and brings private matters into the light of day. With each fictional crime, someone new gets a very real motive.

Can all six friends survive the weekend, or will truth turn out to be deadlier than fiction?

Review Quotes

"Ink Ribbon Red is a thriller for clever people. This dark-hearted, light-footed mystery-thriller -- an inspired mash-up of And Then There Were None, Clue, and Lucy Foley -- plays fair, fierce, and fast: Like the what-could-go-wrong party game that goes very wrong indeed for its cast, it's dangerous fun. Just the tonic for readers hungover on same-old-same-old crime fiction."
--A. J. Finn, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Woman in the Window

"Ink Ribbon Red is the epitome of the artful murder mystery and Alex Pavesi the master puppeteer of literary crime, creating a unique yet relatable cast on pages that won't stop turning. I was utterly hooked."
--Janice Hallett, Internationally bestselling author of The Appeal

"Quirky and unpredictable, Ink Ribbon Red is a Rubik's cube of unreliable narratives"
--Martin Edwards, Edgar-award winning author of The Golden Age of Murder

"Today's greatest exponent of playful detective fiction."
--The Guardian

"Pavesi impresses with this head-spinning meta-mystery... Early on, Anatol acknowledges that his game owes a debt to Agatha Christie's remote-location classics and the gothic spirit of Shirley Jackson; the novel does justice to the comparisons. With shrewd plotting and a bewitching atmosphere, Pavesi ensures that fans of Anthony Horowitz will delight in staying one step ahead of his befuddled characters."
--Publishers Weekly

"Pavesi is a fiendishly good, deliberate, and entertaining writer who augments his whimsical-macabre narrative with wordplay, amusingly barbed exchanges, and menacing figurative language."
--Kirkus

About the Author

Alex Pavesi lives in Surrey, England, where he writes full time. He previously worked as a software engineer and before that obtained a Ph.D. in Mathematics. He enjoys puzzles, long walks, and recreational lock picking. His debut novel, The Eighth Detective, has been published in more than twenty languages and was picked by The New York Times and The Sunday Times as one of their books of the year.