The truth is I have read novels with similar plots to Killer Game: a boarding school where people take part in an assassin-like game for fun and one of the players takes it a bit too seriously and goes rogue. It’s been done before.
I was seriously hoping that Kirsty McKay put her own twist on this classic plot, which I’m relieved to say she did. Killer Game had unique aspects to it, giving it a different taste on your usual murdering game.
Killer game is a tradition – one that not just anyone can be part of. Only a handful get chosen by the Game Master and the Elders, and even after that you have to pass initiation to get into the Guild – the elite players of the killer game. Initiation happens at the dead of the night, and the task is anything the Game Master and Elders decide to test you with. Once all the guild members are chosen, one Killer is picked. The killer must try their hardest to ‘kill’ off every other player, without their identity being guessed by the other players. The killing can only happen through harmless pranks because it’s just a game, right?
Cate passes initiation and is disappointed, as well as relived, to find out she isn’t the killer. Childhood friend Vaughan appears at the school and wants to be part of the game too, offering a social network specifically for the guild members to get him in. Sure enough, he gets in and asks the Guild members to create profiles. By this time two players have already been ‘killed’ through harmless, if messy, pranks, which has Vaughan convinced the killer is a boy.
But the game is changing, and quickly. Soon the kills look more like attempted murders and it seems Cate is a target for the rogue killer. What started as a harmless game has become deadly, and it seems to the players their lives are hanging in the balance.
The characters played a big part in this novel and Kirsty McKay’s writing helped to really shape their personalities. I tried to guess the Killer several times and I was wrong every time! When the killer was revealed, I was in shock, but it wasn’t a cheap reveal with no evidence to back it up – looking back you can see that the true killer is subtly hinted throughout the novel, but it is cleverly hidden through plot twists and the history between the characters. This for me was most entertaining – being certain you knew who the killer is and then on the next page reading something which makes you realise they can’t possibly be. McKay makes sure you are never completely sure in your hunches and this will keep readers on edge and makes for a really entertaining novel!
I would recommend this to anyone who likes to read thriller books, mixed with a bit of murder mystery. It’s perfect if you want a rush of adrenaline after a lazy day.
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