Guess Who: A Novel

by Chris McGeorge

Overview

The rules are simple.

But the game is not.

At eleven years old, Morgan Sheppard solved the murder of a teacher at his school. The publicity surrounding the case launched him to fame as a modern-day Sherlock Holmes.

Until, that is, Sheppard wakes up handcuffed to a bed in an unfamiliar hotel room. Around him, five strangers are slowly waking up, as well. Soon they discover a corpse in the bathtub. But which one of them is the murderer? Now Sheppard must put his deductive skills to the test—or face certain death.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781335080868
Publisher:	Hanover Square Press
Publication date:	08/27/2019
Edition description:	Original
Pages:	384
Sales rank:	542,316
Product dimensions:	5.20(w) x 7.90(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Chris McGeorge has an MA in Creative Writing from City University London. He lives in England.

Editorial Reviews

07/16/2018
British author McGeorge’s debut thriller falls short of the promise of its impressive setup. One day, Morgan Sheppard, the troubled star of a reality TV program, Resident Detective, who achieved renown after solving a teacher’s murder when he was only 11, awakes to find himself handcuffed to a bed in a London hotel room. With him are five strangers, including an attorney, an actress, and a hotel employee. The room is locked, with no way out, and there’s a bloody corpse in the bathroom. The room’s TV set turns on, and someone wearing a cartoon horse mask announces that one of the five is a murderer—and that Morgan has three hours to solve the killing or the hotel will be blown up. After Morgan persuades the others to free him, he discovers that the dead man is Simon Winter, his former therapist. With the clock ticking down, Morgan tries frantically to identify the murderer and the motive for his captivity. Unfortunately, the resolution comes as a letdown. Still, McGeorge’s gift for creating suspense augurs well for the future. Agent: Hannah Sheppard, DHH Literary Agency (U.K.). (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly

"Guess Who boils with claustrophobic intensity. Packed with gripping twists and turns, Guess Who is an inventive, entertaining locked room mystery that kept me utterly hooked." —Adam Hamdy, author of Pendulum

"An ingenious twisty mystery in a totally unique setting." —Claire McGowan, author of The Lost

"An impressive debut and a sign of great things to come." —James Oswald, author of Natural Causes

"Chris McGeorge's Guess Who is a fresh take on the locked room murder mystery. The plotting is intricate, the characters well drawn, and the pace never lets up as it drives headlong to the surprising end." —David C. Taylor, Edgar-nominated, Nero Wolfe Award-winning author of Night Life

"Guess Who is an incredibly satisfying, intelligent thriller running at break-neck pace right until its closing pages. A marvellous debut." —Francesca Dorricott, author of After the Eclipse

"McGeorge's gift for creating suspense augurs well for the future."-Publishers Weekly

"When was the last time you stayed up way too late reading a book because you were locked so deeply into its grip? This happened to me with Chris McGeorge's mesmerizing debut novel Guess Who, a thrilling, edgy, modern update of the locked-room detective mystery. … This is not your grandmother's locked-room mystery, and this gritty, intense update offers thought-provoking insight into how society has changed, using the locked-room mechanism as a prism through which to view those changes.” —The Oklahoman

From the Publisher

04/01/2018
After 11-year-old Morgan Sheppard figures out that a teacher's death was not suicide but murder, he's crowned a baby Sherlock and featured solving lightweight mysteries on TV. Then he wakes up handcuffed and told that he must determine in three hours which of the five strangers awakening with him killed the person in the bathtub—or they all die. A creepy debut with a classic locked-room situation; with a 40,000-copy first printing.

Library Journal

2018-07-02
In McGeorge's debut thriller, a celebrity detective wakes up handcuffed to a bed in a locked room—and there's a body in the bathroom.Ever since there have been fictional detectives, there have been locked-room mysteries, those seemingly impossible puzzles that hinge not only on whodunit, but how. McGeorge begins by presenting just such a problem to both the reader and the main character, Morgan Sheppard, who has grown rich and successful off "solving" the problems of others, mostly involving cheating spouses and other tawdry concerns. He is a drug addict and an alcoholic; in short, his life is a complete mess. So when he awakens in a room at the Great Hotel in London and finds five strangers locked in with him, they all assume at first that it must be a publicity stunt. Then Sheppard discovers the body of his former therapist in the bathtub and is challenged by a man in a mask to solve the murder before the entire hotel explodes. The novel offers some flashbacks to Sheppard's youth and early career to help us understand how he became the mess that he is, but it mostly focuses on the problem at hand: How will Sheppard get everyone out of the locked room and figure out who killed Dr. Winter? The answer to the mystery lies buried in his past, so he will have to face up to some of his unsavory choices in order to escape with his life. The main problem with the novel is the character of Sheppard himself. Traditionally, the locked room mystery depends on the superior ratiocination of a Hercule Poirot or a Sherlock Holmes—not a self-destructive and bitter attention-seeker. It's hard to get too worked up about either Sheppard's fate or his opportunity for redemption.An interesting premise that falls flat when the detective fails to impress, though the villain is diabolical.

Kirkus Reviews

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