Dead End Drive is a dark comedy/horror starring a teenage boy named Kelly, who stands to inherit a Louisiana mansion that belonged to his late adoptive mother, Agatha Benedict. In the night following the reading of Agatha’s will, the mansion’s staff take part in a game of deception and murder, where the last man or woman standing will become the legitimate inheritor of the property; think Battle Royale meets Clue. The book has a colourful cast of characters, including a fortuneteller, a tennis player, a butler and maid, and several others. None are one-note clichés however, as they all have their own motivations and back stories which are gradually revealed over the course of the book (usually around the time he/she becomes a POV character). My favourite character was found on page 2, the hilariously Scottish chef Angus McGregor, and though I wasn’t thrilled with his fate at the end of the book, I was at least glad he didn’t die shortly after meeting him. The book also has enough variety to prevent becoming a monotonous murder-fest, partly through its protagonist, Kelly. The scenes with him as the POV character create a slight tonal shift, as, rather than gladly taking part in the murder and mayhem as the others do, Kelly reacts to it all like any sane person would, and is scared for his life, likely ending up traumatized as a result. The other characters, meanwhile, tend to rationalize their wicked ways, and are either having a jolly good time plotting and scheming and stabbing, or are left frightened and panicking when the limits of their cunning are revealed to them. One point of critique I have to make (and Ian may very well be aware of this by now) is that closer attention should have been paid to editing. I found several instances (mostly in the early chapters) where sentences ended up jumbled because of missing/repeated words or out-of-order ideas. It’s nothing that I would call bad writing however, just the sort of minor errors we all make and try to minimize when putting our work out there.