Book Review : Murder In Paradise by Greg Wilson

Synopsis : 

A remote island in the South Pacific plays host to a dozen strangers. One of them is a murderer. 

An advertisement in a newspaper brings a disparate group of people to a tropical paradise. They will live together for a year, work and build a community, and film everything that happens for a documentary that will only see the light of day at the end of the trip. 

Almost at once, things begin to go wrong. 

They are meant to be strangers, but some of them have met before. They are meant to receive regular visits by the company funding the documentary, but nobody ever comes. 

And their only link with the outside world - a small portable radio transmitter - is incapable of transmitting anything...

Review : 

Actually Murder In Paradise is not typically novel that I read. It just that for once in a while, I want to read other genre that I don't usually read. Unfortunately this book fail to satisfy me. Or maybe I just have too high expectation. 

Basically, murder in Paradise is about a group of people that join TV program/documentary to get money. They were not supposed to know each other. But some of them know each other and not in a good way. One by one, they get murdered by killer or psychopath. At first I thought this story is about romance with crime mystery throwned in the mix. But it looks like I am not quite right. It was half neither. You are not satisfy with non existent romance and still not tense enough with the situation. I don't even know who are the targeted readers for this story. Not to mention, there are too many characters. I don't even know who are who. You can interchange one with another. The interaction between characters doesn't help. Basically most of them are two dimensional characters. I don't even know who is the protagonist. I only know who is the main antagonist which is the killer. But if I have to choose between characters, it was Steve, Andrew, and Stephanie are the one who get my attention. Surprisingly one of them will die at the end despite I thought he/she is an interesting character.

The story begin slowly and quite boring. You just read it just for the sake of reading. At one point you just simply doesn't care what will happen next. You just want to finish it. Not even the climax can aroused your attention anymore. It was too long for simple story. The ending doesn't make sense. Or maybe I just don't like it. Doesn't leave any impression. Still I give this 3 star rating instead of 2 because I believe it was good story, but just not for me. Doesn't leave bad taste also help. I cannot recommend this story because I don't know who is the targeted reader not because this is bad story. You can try if you think you may like it because I certainly take the risk. 

Rating : 3 of 5

Regards, 

Angela