5 Great Locked Room – island – mysteries for Summer 2022

20th June 2022

5 Great Locked Room  – island – mysteries for Summer 2022.

Summer 2022 sees several titles that offer a rather wonderful location, with a locked room mystery at their heart. Perhaps an island where the lodging is cut off by the tides twice a day, where people feel confined and invariably are corralled with a killer in their midst. With escape possibilities limited, this kind of environment adds a real frisson to the story and is an excellent device to heighten tension dramatically. South Devon is getting a good look-in!

The Club by Ellery Lloyd (a Resse Witherspoon Book Club choice)

For fans of The White Lotus and Big Little Lies, Ellery Lloyd’s The Club is an exhilarating, addictive read, telling a story of ambition, excess, and what happens when people who have everything – or nothing – to lose are pushed to their limit.

There’s no place like Home . . .

The Home Group is a collection of ultra-exclusive private members’ clubs and a global phenomenon, and the opening of its most ambitious project yet – Island Home, a forgotten island transformed into the height of luxury – is billed as the celebrity event of the decade.

But as the first guests arrive, the weekend soon proves deadly – because it turns out that even the most beautiful people can keep the ugliest secrets and, in a world where reputation is everything, they’ll do anything to keep it.

If your name’s on the list, you’re not getting out . . .

Set on an island off the coast of England

The Resort by Sue Watson (South Devon)

When a dream trip becomes your worst nightmare…

You’ve been excited about this getaway for months – at last, a chance to reconnect with your husband at a secluded island resort. But when he unexpectedly calls you from the beach, you hear the urgency in his voice. Something is very wrong.

The beautiful waitress from the restaurant last night has been found lying dead in the sand. And the police want to question your husband about it.

Sure, you saw him glance at her over dinner a few times, but you know he didn’t have anything to do with the poor girl’s death. So why is he asking you to lie to the police that he was with you all night? And where did he go in those missing hours?

When he returns to your beautiful sea-view suite, things get heated and he accuses you of being jealous, just like he always does. Yes, the waitress was overly flirtatious with your husband, but you didn’t actually wish her any harm. Not really.

Can you trust the man you married… or are you the one who can’t be trusted?

“..The location was inspired by Burgh Island where Agatha Christie wrote And Then There Were None, and Evil Under the Sun. It’s the perfect place for a locked room mystery because when the tide comes in, the island is cut off from the mainland. ..”

How To Kill Your Best Friend by Lexie Elliott (South East Asia)

The perfect getaway – to get away with murder…

Georgie, Lissa and Bronwyn have been best friends since they met on their college swimming team. Now Lissa is dead – drowned off the coast of the remote island where her second husband owns a luxury resort. But could a star open-water swimmer really have drowned? Or is something more sinister going on?

Brought together for Lissa’s memorial, Georgie, Bron, Lissa’s grieving husband and their friends find themselves questioning the circumstances around Lissa’s death – and each other. As the weather turns ominous, trapping the guests on the island, it slowly dawns on them that Lissa’s death was only the beginning. Nobody knows who they can trust. Or if they’ll make it off the island alive…

The Getaway by Ross Armstrong (Greece)

One private island. Seven guests. One killer…

The perfect holiday. The perfect murder. The perfect beach read…

Get away from your problems.
Multimillionaire Robert Rathwell and his entourage arrive at their private Greek island. White sand, turquoise water, the perfect place to relax. But this is no ordinary family, and this holiday will be their last.

Get away from your life.
The next morning, a scream shatters their peaceful world. Someone has been murdered, his body arranged to make it look like suicide. Everyone has a motive and, under the burning sun, secrets quickly simmer to the surface.

Get away with murder.
Soon the guests see a darker, more violent side to paradise. Because the Rathwells don’t just own the island; they own the people on it. And they can do whatever they like – maybe even commit murder…

The Retreat by Sarah Pearse (South Devon)

This is a warning for all our guests at the wellness retreat.
A woman’s body has been found at the bottom of the cliff beneath the yoga pavilion.
We believe her death was a tragic accident, though DS Elin Warner has arrived on the island to investigate.
A storm has been forecast, but do not panic. Stick together and please ignore any rumours you might have heard about the island and its history.
As soon as the weather clears, we will arrange boats to take you back to the mainland.
In the meantime, we hope you enjoy your stay.

BONUS BOOK

Daisy Darker by Alice Feeney (Cornwall)

Daisy Darker’s family were as dark as dark can be, when one of them died all of them lied and pretended not to see . . .

Daisy Darker is arriving at her grandmother’s house for her eightieth birthday. It is Halloween, and Seaglass – the crumbling Cornish house perched upon its own tiny private island – is at one with the granite rocks it sits on. The Darker family haven’t all been in the same place for over a decade, and when the tide comes in they’ll be cut off from the rest of the world for eight hours. When the tide goes back out, nothing will ever be the same again, because one of them is a killer . . .

‘Wow! Echoes of Christie’s And Then There Were None but turned into something wonderfully original. This takes Feeney to the next level. LOVED IT!’ – Sarah Pinborough, author of #1 bestselling Behind Her Eyes

The Drowning Hour by S K Tremayne (Essex)

A hotel brimming with wealthy guests

Surrounded by the Blackwater estuary, The Stanhope hotel sits on a beautiful remote island. Tonight is the grand reopening, and organiser Hannah watches the guests with pride.

Celebration leads to tragedy

But as drinking descends into debauchery, drunken revellers wade into the water, unaware of the treacherous tide at The Drowning Hour.
They are never seen again.

Fear becomes phobia

Tormented by a terror of water, Hannah is stuck on the island over winter. Whispers about That Night begin to circle.
Someone knows what really happened in The Drowning Hour – and Hannah isn’t safe…

Deep Water by Emma Bamford (Indian Ocean)

Amarante is paradise…
An uninhabited, unspoilt island somewhere in the Indian Ocean.
Only those who know it exists can find it.

But paradise comes with a price…
Virginie and Jake sail to Amarante for their honeymoon, but they are not alone.
They have to adjust to life on the island with five strangers.

And not everyone will live to tell the tale…
Dark secrets surface and their dream abruptly turns into a nightmare.
Removed from society, they find out what they’re truly capable of.

#fromourbookshelves

The Lighthouse by P D James

Combe Island off the Cornish coast is a restful retreat for the rich and the powerful. But the peace of the island is violated when one of its distinguished visitors is murdered.

Adam Dalgliesh is called in to solve the mystery quickly and discreetly, but at a difficult time for him and his depleted team. Hardly have the team begun to unravel the complicated motives of the suspects that there is a second brutal killing and the whole investigation is jeopardised when Dalgliesh is faced with a danger more insidious and as potentially fatal as murder.

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