Book Review: The Final Game

April: Humour
Title: The Final Game
Author: Caimh McDonnell

Blurb: Dorothy Graham is dead. This is hugely inconvenient, not least for her. Luckily, she has planned for this eventuality. Now, if any of her truly dreadful family want to get their hands on her money, they will have to do so via a fiendishly difficult and frankly bizarre competition of Dorothy’s devising. Just because you’re dead, it doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy a last laugh at the expense of people who made your life miserable.

Paul Mulchrone, to his unending credit, is neither related to Dorothy nor happy that she is dead. What he is, however, is a contestant in this competition whether he likes it or not, which he definitely doesn’t. He and his girlfriend, the formidable Brigit, are supposed to be running MCM Investigations, a detective agency. Instead, they have to go into battle against Dorothy’s bloodsucking relatives. As if that wasn’t enough, they get hired by the aforementioned dead woman to find out who killed her.

I picked this book completely at random, having never read any of McDonnell's work before and not really knowing too much about it, but the blurb caught my interest as something different so I thought I'd give it a go. I've got to say it must be one of the most bizarre story ideas I've ever come across, to the point where at the beginning I thought, well this is just so unrealistic.

However, I actually had so much fun reading this book. Yes, the plot is unrealistic but that's what I ended up loving about it. The idea of creating a whole reality TV-style competition to see who of your relatives gets your fortune...Dorothy is a genius! One thing I did like, was that the story would keep jumping from the competition to the investigation into Dorothy's death. The switching between the two plots helps to give the competition the feel of as if you were watching an actual TV show. Every time the chapter would change away from the competition, I was waiting eagerly for it to come back so I could find out what happens next. It's like having to wait until the following night to watch the next episode of I'm a Celebrity...Get me out of Here! 

I think my favourite scene throughout the book happens before the competition even takes place, at the will reading. This is the first scene where you really get introduced to all the characters and I think it's the point in the book where you fully start to understand the level of humour and madness which awaits you going forward. I really wanted to get a quote for this chapter but I couldn't find just one that summed it up so you'll just have to give the book a read to see what I mean 🙂

The characters are all really easy to relate to and you get a good feel for the different personalities of each character very quickly. Dorothy was by far my favourite character. Despite her being dead (I don't think this counts as a spoiler as the blurb above pretty much gives this away) she still plays a big part throughout the story and her wit and just pure badass-ness had me full-on laughing out loud more than once. 

The only thing I would say is that I would have liked to have got to know the grandchildren and their partners a bit more, especially as they are all suspects in Dorothy's death. There are a couple characters whose names are fairly similar and it took me a little while to remember which one was which but by the end of the book they all come into their own so it wasn't too bad. 

As humour books go, this definitely hit the mark for me. As I say, Dorothy alone had me laughing and even then, I found the rest of the characters funny in their own way. There a lot of sarcasm, wittiness and ridiculousness, all of which compliment each other really well. Also, the crime aspect was done very well! I had no idea right up until the end who the killer actually was. 

So if you're looking for a really nice, easy read that's got plenty of humour and a murder mystery then this is definitely the books for you. Having read The Final Game I am excited to read McDonnell's other books! 

Next Review:

May: Crime
Book: Keep Him Close by Emily Koch