“And, if it wasn’t, well, she needs to unmask the real killer if she wants to clear her own name.”
It should come as no surprise to any long-time visitors here at What We Reading that we love a locked-room mystery thriller. Give us a load of strangers with plenty of secrets, vendettas, and motivations, lock them in an eerie backdrop with no means of escaping, and we’ll lap it up. Back in October, we did a book review for The Escape Room by L.D. Smithson, and we’re back today to bring you another game-show-gone-wrong thriller, this time coming from British television presenter Louise Minchin in her 2024 mystery thriller novel, Isolation Island. So, how did this reality show turned murder mystery on an abandoned Scottish monastery stack up, both against The Escape Room and on its own merits? Join us here at What We Reading for our Isolation Island book review to find out!
Date Published: 2024
Author: Louise Minchin
Genre: Mystery, Thriller
Pages: 304
Goodreads Rating: 3.65/5
Isolation Island Summary
Ten celebrities have arrived to take part in the most gruelling – and lucrative – reality survival show ever devised: two weeks completely alone on a remote Scottish island, in the depths of winter. With a production team that seems incapable of keeping them safe, a gathering storm, and the unrelenting gaze of hidden cameras, the contestants are stretched to the limit as they outshine their fellow competitors and keep their darkest secrets buried.
Yet, when one of the contestants winds up dead, it soon becomes clear that the players are not just fighting for their dream prize, but ultimately for their lives.
What Worked
One of the biggest positives about Isolation Island is the authenticity that author Louise Minchin brings to the book. Having established herself as one of the most respected television presenters in the UK, not only has Minchin seen all the ways production teams exploit and manufacture reality shows like Isolation Island, but she also has firsthand experience living and breathing them through her time on I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here! This gives the setting, show, and the way in which the characters are selected a believability that not every mystery thriller possesses. It’s subtle, but it does shine through at times.
The quality of writing itself was actually a noticeable step up from some of the other mystery novels we’ve read recently. There are some really nice descriptions of the island and the monastery, and the whole story was much more pleasant to read than we were perhaps expecting from a book in this genre.
Finally, there’s some good twists that come near the end that play with your head. The way in which certain scenarios were flipped from the perspective of one character to the next was a particularly effective technique, and if anything, we wished we could have had a bit more of it.
Finally, having a decently large cast isn’t always the easiest to manage, but Minchin does a pretty good job of having them all stand out from one another. Some of these characters naturally shine more as more interesting than others, but all of them are fairly distinctive, which is something that a thriller like this can lose itself on.
What Didn’t
The first thing to say about Isolation Island is that it is unbelievably predictable. Anyone who has read a few of our thriller book reviews will know that we are notoriously bad at guessing twists and the culprits in whodunnits; however, we can honestly say we had this one chalked almost down to a tee from about a third of the way through. Characters, whilst distinctive with their appearances and personalities, do fall into the classic categories, which means that it’s all very predictable what their motivations are, who might fall out with whom, and which one of the suspects is going to ultimately be responsible.
There’s a lot in the Isolation Island game itself that feels very underworked, too. Who is behind the voice and the production team? How can we guarantee whatever dream prize the contestants want? Why do they only live for five minutes? How is the game going to evolve and develop? Did the production team really have ulterior motives? None of these questions are ever given answers, and things just trundle through during the first half of the book. Take away the reality show element from the novel, and the story doesn’t change at all.
The pacing in general with the book does feel a little bit all over the place. As we mentioned, Isolation Island drifts through the first hundred pages or so quite slowly with drawn-out descriptions and not a lot of action, and then everything is revealed and spelled out at breakneck speed with just a handful of pages to go. It’s a really underwhelming formula that just leaves the book feeling like it’s missing its ‘oomph’.
Verdict
Overall, Isolation Island is a mystery thriller that has potential in abundance, but sadly very little in the way of actual delivery.
The best way of summing up the book is that it feels like a splicing of different ideas for a story that Louise Minchin has picked up from her experiences in television, put into one story. There’s a great setting and some interesting characters to pack into things, but sadly, they aren’t given the time or nuance to shine through. Had Minchin delved more into themes like the dystopian nature of reality survival shows, surveillance, or our obsession with celebrity culture, there would have been a far more interesting read to enjoy here.
So many unanswered questions remain thanks to the absolutely rapid way in which Minchin throws out the biggest discoveries and most crucial revelations in the final few chapters, which makes for a slightly tired and predictable story. The formulaic characters, rushed ending, and predictable twists mean that Isolation Island rarely feels anything other than surface-level and doesn’t bring anything new to the genre.
Our Rating: 3/5
Part-time reader, part-time rambler, and full-time Horror enthusiast, James has been writing for What We Reading since 2022. His earliest reading memories involved Historical Fiction, Fantasy and Horror tales, which he has continued to take with him to this day. James’ favourite books include The Last (Hanna Jameson), The Troop (Nick Cutter) and Chasing The Boogeyman (Richard Chizmar).
