Drawing from the grand dame of mysteries, Agatha Christie, American debut novelist Ande Pliego crafts a puzzle box novel with “You Are Fatally Invited.”
Six acclaimed authors are invited to a weeklong writers retreat with the esteemed J.R. Alastor to play games and work on their newest novels. However, they arrive on the foggy and isolated Wolf Harbor Estate in Casco Bay, Maine, to find their host absent and a conniving event planner in his place.
Each chapter, written in first person, is clearly labeled with either a character’s name or attribute. Interspersed between these short and suspenseful chapters are excerpts from Alastor’s newest book, “The Ink in Your Veins: On Writing Fear,” that serves as a guide and foreshadows the host’s intentions. Each of the six days of the retreat begin with a term and its definition from the Index of Tropes that aligns with Alastor’s sections.
“You Are Fatally Invited” shifts focus from the camaraderie and competition between writers to solving the murders of several writers whose deaths mirror those in their respective books. The change may broaden the appeal of Pliego’s mystery.
Character Analysis
Main Characters
Mila del Angel
J.R. Alastor
Violet Blake
Olivia Sandoval
Cassandra Hutchinson
Ashton Carter
Thomas Fletcher
Protagonist Mila del Angel accepted the position of event planner and accomplice for J.R. Alastor’s writer’s retreat after having her manuscript stolen by a writing partner. This partner is one of the six authors invited to the retreat whom Mila plans to kill under the guise of an accident.
Since her writing was stolen and published under another author’s name, Mila lost her sense of self and fell on hard times. She can no longer write and only comes alive when plotting her revenge with Alastor through emails and chat.
Mila remained ignorant of Alastor’s true reason for selecting the six authors and was just as dismayed as the guests when the murders began. Although she became a prime suspect, Alastor intervenes to keep her safe and force the authors to play twisted games that reveal their professional and personal sins.
Beyond her loyalty to Alastor, Mila also felt protective of housekeeper Taryn and chef Curt. She declines to share any details of the retreat with them and keeps the pair separated from all the guests.
J.R. Alastor is the pen name of a best-selling author with a career spanning nearly 30 years. No one, including Mila, has ever seen or heard from Alastor. All contacts with the reclusive author were done via text or through Mila.
Despite impatient pleas from the assembled guests, Alastor declined to make an appearance at the retreat. The host instead communicated exclusively with Mila via text and, later, distorted audio exchanges.
The denouement revealed to Mila and everyone else Alastor’s true identity and the strategy behind inviting the guests.
Considered the prodigy of the group, 24-year-old Violet Blake withdrew from the other authors as she reflected on the burglary of her apartment and theft of her laptop has transformed her into an anxious person fearful of small spaces. Her book, “An Ecology of Scars,” released three years earlier became a bestseller and put her on Alastor’s radar.
Although Violet only received four first-person chapters on day six of the retreat, she was arguably the most important guest.
Olivia Sandoval, wife and writing partner of Rodrigo Sandoval, spent most of the novel grieving for her murdered husband (stabbed and hanged in the island’s cemetery). Most of her comments to the group revolved around solving Rodrigo’s murder and casting suspicion on Mila and the staff on being in cahoots with Alastor.
The petite blonde’s grief prevented Mila and the guests from seeing how dangerous she was. Olivia’s anger and desire to meet Alastor led her to take maniacal actions that placed everyone in jeopardy.
Group elder Cassandra Hutchinson, 73, was the only author whose published work predated Alastor’s. The gregarious older woman lies about her age (removed three years) and has an antagonistic relationship with Thomas Fletcher, whom she claimed always chased fame in a “pitiful attempt to make [him] feel successful.”
She was the lone author to anticipate her demise and prepared for it by fondly remembering her daughter and sipping the tea Mila made her. Additionally, Cassandra’s body was not found in her room where she perished, but a red splat on the steps directly below her second-floor bedroom revealed that she was dragged from bed and dropped.
A former cop turned author, Austin Carter was the attractive Asian-American author who quickly charmed and disarmed Mila. The two exchanged meaningful looks while talking about their shared love of writing. Austin’s debut novel, “It Swallows Us Whole,” reframed a tragic incident from his youth when childhood friend Jack drowned.
Austin refused to be honest with himself or others at the retreat about the true meaning of his book. His deception enables Alastor to create a specific torture for him to remember and acknowledge his past bad deed.
The group’s resident judgmental Brit was a former therapist who broke into writing by mining his patients’ lived experiences for content. Under his new name, Thomas Fletcher, he condescended to the younger writers and exaggerated his connection to Alastor.
Alastor tormented Fletcher by using his first book written under his real name to bait him, along with small busts of Julius Caesar that were used as a lethal weapon in his most recent novel. What no one, including Alastor, knew was that Fletcher was months behind in finishing his newest manuscript and needed to work non-stop at the retreat to meet the extended deadline.
Plot Summary
A diverse group of six thriller/mystery writers arrived on Wolf Harbor Island, a private estate owned by the legendary J.R. Alastor. They were greeted by Mila, an event coordinator who masked her own reasons for being on the island.
Day 1: The Dinner Party
From the start, British author Thomas Fletcher made his dislike of young writer Austin Carter well-known while barely tolerating Olivia and Rodrigo Sandoval, Violet Blake, or Cassandra Hutchinson. He was elitist and proclaimed special knowledge of the famously cloistered Alastor.
The guests were quickly shown to their rooms, given an abbreviated tour of the meticulously designed and updated home. They’re unaware of the small room where Mila sat watching the hidden cameras she placed in every room to track the guests and relay information to Alastor via her smart watch.
She learned one guest had brought a loaded gun to the retreat and informed Alastor. He instructed her to remove the bullets but leave the gun with its owner.
During their welcome dinner on the beach, each author received a small box from Alastor containing a memento from their past that could be incriminating. They included a black widow spider, a copy of “An Ocean at the End of the Lane” by Neil Gaiman, a fountain pen, a dead blue bird, a preserved plant and snakeskin.
They were also left to solve the riddle of a large fish missing both its eyes and scales. They guessed it represented lady justice, but Fletcher noted the fish is on ice and comments that it’s revenge that’s best served cold.
Mila popped into the kitchen to collect the entrees and slipped drugs into both Rodrigo’s and Olivia’s meals. The anxiety meds she put in his meal cause Rodrigo to awaken seeking a glass of water.
Day 2: Cursed Artifacts
On Day 2, Rodrigo went absent after failing to return from a long walk around the island. Mila and Carter followed a map gifted to him at the dinner to the cemetery and found his body hoisted onto a tree. His stabbing mirrored a murder from his newest novel with Olivia called “Every Death You Fake.”
The five remaining writers debated whether to contact the police immediately and prepare to leave the island or stay and see if Rodrigo really is dead and if it’s an elaborate hoax. Fletcher insisted the body could have been a mannequin left by Alastor as part of the week’s activities.
Cassandra knew she would be the next to die. So, she savored a last cup of tea, then confronted Fletcher, whom she called Tim, before going to be. She was taken from her bed through the window similar to a death in her latest novel, “The Santorini Scandal.”
Day 3: Game Night
The eldest author’s absence further escalated tensions in the group as they continued to play Alastor’s Day 3 challenge – a demented game of Clue.
They are tasked with nine character cards –the six authors, Mila, and the two paid staff members to their respective sins. Among the options were host, accomplice, exploiter, child murderer, and serial killer.
If the characters and their sins were matched, then Alastor’s identity would be revealed.
Tensions rose as Fletcher accused Mila of being Alastor of acting as his accomplice. She denied any involvement, and Violet came to her aid. Meanwhile, Ashton drafted lists of characters, their gifts from the first night dinner, and their sins.
Day 4: Survive the Night
Fletcher started Day 4 with pain in his neck and anxiety in his gut about meeting his looming manuscript deadline. He also became aware of miniature Julius Caesar busts like the one in his novel, “The Kite That Burned the Sun,” in his room and in prominent places in the estate. The small decoration was used in one of three deaths in his novel.
Fletcher also saw rope everywhere in his room that linked to the suicide by hanging in his book before finding a doctor’s prescription written requesting that Mila be sedated. He considered the directive a trade-off between him and Alastor.
Mila’s two staff members – Taryn the cleaner and Curtis the chef – were stabbed to death and dragged from their rooms to Alastor’s closed office. Mila and the guests found their bloodied bodies and realized the threats had intensified.
While exploring the study for clues about Alastor, Mila spotted a black envelope with instructions for the fourth night. “Each guest must remain in their room from sunset to sunup. If anyone leaves their room, they lose,” the note read.
Alastor explained to Mila that Taryn and Curtis were hired because they could be blackmailed for past sins. Taryn stole prescription medication to deal drugs, and Curtis’ careless actions in the kitchen led to a fatal poisoning at a restaurant. But the reclusive author insisted that someone else killed them.
In a chapter from the perspective of the serial killer, it’s revealed the staff members were killed to eliminate them as suspects and several attempts on Mila’s life were made. Ultimately, the killer allowed Mila to survive because she might be able to get them off the island.
Violet relayed Alastor’s instructions while they argued in the kitchen about next steps.
Fletcher informed the others of his plan to drug Mila’s tea. The 40 milligram dose of Zolpidem (Ambien) he crushed into her drink with their tacit approval immediately makes her woozy. During this exchange, the prescription slipped out of Fletcher’s sports coat and was picked up and read by Ashton.
Mila confronted him and was quickly escorted to her room by Ashton. The two shared a sweet moment and nearly kissed. Then, she darted to the bathroom to force up the tainted tea. Alastor reminded her that she needed to remain alert overnight.
Once Ashton returned from Mila’s room, the authors learned of Fletcher’s deception. He broke his ethical oath as a therapist to write a book called “Confessions of a Frankly Disgusted Therapist” by Dr. Timothy Foley. The 10-year-old non-fiction book mocked the struggles of many patients, including a parent who suffered psychosis from long-term grief over losing a child.
Fletcher defended his decision to publish patient stories and slammed the door to his room after Violet announced it was sunset. Inside, he immediately saw a long rope with noose hanging from the ceiling with a chair beside it and even more small busts of Caesar.
Mila slipped through hidden passageways to haunt the house. She set water to drip slowly into Ashton’s room, created smoke to sound the fire alarm, and finally at sunrise played a recording of her rehearsed earth-shattering scream. Both Violet and Olivia clambered downstairs from their rooms to check on her.
When Ashton and Fletcher failed to appear, Mila charged upstairs and pounded on the younger writer’s door. Hearing no response, she used her keys to open it and discovered his body laid on the carpet with an incision from his ear to his Adam’s apple and dried blood surrounding him.
Olivia pulled her away before she could do anything. While Mila attributed this to concern, it was driven by Olivia’s desire to keep up the ruse she and Ashton created. They planned to fake his death so that he could investigate unseen using a kill from Ahston’s debut, “It Swallows Us Whole.”
They trio moved to Fletcher’s room where his prone body reclined in bed with a syringe near his feet. An invisible puncture mark between his toes where oxygen was injected into his bloodstream caused a lethal embolism as written in his novel.
Day 5: Final Girls
Alastor’s Day 6 game titled Final Girls pitted Olivia and Violet against one another and left them no choice but to own their sins. Mila brought them a premade dinner of chicken breasts in a lemon sauce with herbal garnishes.
She soon departed the dining room to get the salt but locked the two remaining writers in the room together with a set of numbers from Alastor. They had until the lone candle on the table burned down (about 30 minutes) to break the code and solve the mystery.
Violet’s experience as a college library intern enabled her to understand 581.69 referred to a non-fiction natural science botany book. She reluctantly passed along the information to Olivia, who grabbed Nature of the Vengeful, and the pair read the section underlined in Alastor’s red pen. The passage calls out a non-poisonous oleander lookalike that the killer would know to avoid.
Olivia’s plate retained some potatoes and the garnishes, but Violet’s and Mila’s plates were empty. Desperate to appease her friend and buy time to kill her, Olivia lied and claimed to have only killed once to protect her older sister from an abusive husband.
The serial killer removed a hidden machete from where it was taped under the table and ran after Violet, who burst from the room when Mila unlocked it. Mila and Violet fled through the kitchen seeking out knives and other weapons.
Violet pulled out her empty gun when the pair stopped outside of the kitchen. She complained Alastor stole her magazine, which Mila quickly handed to her. The event coordinator’s only word of explanation was “later.”
Mila’s nose absorbed the familiar scent of petroleum, and she realized Olivia doused the kitchen with gasoline and any spark could cause a fire. Still, Violet insisted on shooting her gun and stopping Olivia permanently.
The bullet landed in Olivia’s chest. In her dying moments, the serial killer mentioned she worked with a man and wished the survivors luck in giving him hell. Olivia’s unnamed partner wasn’t Alastor but Ashton.
Alastor manipulated the grandfather clock in the foyer to ring in a new day at 8:43 p.m. to announce Day 6.
Day 6: Confession
The game called Confession featured two players, Mila and Violet, who knew each other previously. Violet was the writer who stole Mila’s manuscript and claimed it as her own. Violet insisted on confessing to stealing from her critique partner whom she met on Twitter and exchanged notes and voice messages.
Mila, in turn, acknowledged that she’s Ana Emilia Aracely-Ortega, or Mila for short, and sought revenge for the last three years for Violet’s betrayal. She denied being responsible for the deaths that took place but did apologize for them.
Violet, 18 at the time of their correspondence, claimed Mila’s work as her own after being ghosted when Mila stopped returning her messages. The older aspiring author had to discontinue writing to care for her terminally ill mother.
Sharing their confessions in the Museum Room, the women begin to feel the space grow hotter as the fire Alastor started using the propane tank climbed the walls and incinerated everything in its path.
Mila asked Violet to enter the antique-style confessional booth so they could complete the game and escape a fiery death.
Violet, who feared small spaces with blocked exits, tentatively studied the puzzle box lock of the structure before gingerly entering one side of the booths, which triggered a scale to ensure each side was occupied. Each sat locked in a snug box when Violet ordered Mila to grab the back of her booth inward, then shove it to the right.
With effort, Mila heeded the directions and managed to remove the back of her booth and saw a corridor offering fresh air and escape from the encroaching flames. A feeling of guilt overwhelmed as she grasped the full effect of the confessional– it was designed to trap one occupant.
Mila’s escape meant Violet would stay and perish in the house fire. Profusely apologizing to her former nemesis, Mila returned to her tiny space in the confessional and turned the lock.
Violet jumped at the chance to survive and bolted down the makeshift route behind it. Despite hearing and feeling the fire enter the museum, Mila valiantly tried to break free of her chosen prison. She shoved at the wooden walls until her legs burned with exertion and used her fist to break the small stained glass window.
Footsteps alerted the trapped woman to Alastor’s approach. Next, she saw a pair of green eyes and halo of red hair. Cassandra Hutchinson, 73, had arrived to rescue Mila and die in her place.
In an attempt to make light of the situation, Cassandra joked about how overdone resurrections are in books. She informed Mila the design of the confessional requires one person to stay inside. They briefly sparred as Mila accused Cassandra of being duplicitous and not following the rules of the game.
The septuagenarian argued she kept her promises and didn’t kill Ashton as Mila believed. He faked his own death and signed his own death warrant in the process.
Simultaneously, Violet bolted from the engulfed house and began considering who the fourth guest Olivia mentioned could be. It was a man and the only male who could be alive on the island was Ashton.
The prodigy mulled over the subject of Ashton’s book and decided Alastor may have attempted to drown him. She decisively moved to the dock and called for him.
Cassandra considered the pain she felt at losing her daughter Jaqueline “Jack” to Ashton’s prank gone wrong. Reconsidering what the confessions were meant to teach, she decided to assume Mila’s space in the confessional so the contrite young woman could resume her life.
Running down the hidden stairwell to exit the burning building, Mila caught sight of Violet and Ashton. Her vision impaired from a combination of smoke inhalation, soot and tears.
Violet kneeled before her ex-critique partner and thanked her for staying in the confessional so she could leave.
One Week Later
The surviving trio met at Ashton’s Airbnb to discuss what happened and how to address media inquiries.
Ashton implied he understood that Violet stole Mila’s book, “An Ecology of Scars,” and that motivated Cassandra to recruit her after Rodrigo buried evidence to protect his client. Rodrigo worked with Violet’s lawyer, Michael Rothchild, to mismanage the case and prevent Mila from claiming credit and compensation for her work.
Rothchild was Cassandra’s husband at the time. He died from anaphylaxis from ingesting peanuts. His wife was on the other side of the country at a writer’s conference when he passed. She made a show of leaving early to handle the death she caused by rubbing peanut oil on the inside of his coffee mug.
Olivia took the serial killer ideas from the workshop she attended with Cassandra and committed the murders in real life. She wrote about her experience in several of the novels she and Rodrigo wrote under the pen name Val Lamont.
Cassandra sought revenge on Fletcher for the illegal and perfidious actions in profiting from his patients’ pain. He ridiculed her hurt and anger of her daughter’s sudden death and shared her mental health history publicly.
Ashton angered Cassandra most of all. His cavalier actions at Camp Red Lake: a Behavioral Health Camp for Troubled Adolescents caused Jack to drown. The teenager invited his friend to join him in a canoe after dark even knowing she couldn’t swim.
His intention was to leave her in the canoe and have it float to the middle of the lake for the camp counselors to find the next morning. Instead, the canoe capsized, Jack begged for help, Ashton simply smirked at her and watched her drown.
Cassandra knew Ashton accidentally killed her daughter, and she was hellbent on making him pay.
Two Years Later
With the hatchet buried, Violet and Mila agree to co-write a book called “A Deadly Invitation.” It becomes an instant best-seller and they do a national book tour with a media blitz to promote it.
During an interview, they note their previous book, “An Ecology of Scars,” was a joint effort in which Mila chose to stay anonymous.
Violet expresses regret to the interviewer for that decision and confirms that Violet Blake is a pen name for both of them.
They also announce the reopening of Wolf Harbor Island to host an annual six-week writing retreat to writers of all experiences and backgrounds.
Final Thoughts
“You Are Fatally Invited” is indebted to Christie’s “And Then There Were None” as well as more recent closed circle mysteries. The nearly 400-page novel features caricatures of well-known mystery and thriller authors as well as some twisted games.
With seven main characters and Alastor, “You Are Fatally Invited” can feel overplotted and melodramatic. This shortcoming is most visible when the characters disagree about leaving the island and when Pliego offers glimpses at the games Alastor and the serial killer are playing.
The biggest stumbling block readers may have with Pliego’s multi-layered mystery is the emotional fluctuations of its protagonist Mila. For most of “You Are Fatally Invited,” she’s brimming with anger toward the thief of her manuscript and plotting a death. But quickly forgives and moves on from the life-altering betrayal in a matter of paragraphs when she confronts Violet.
Despite its flaws, “You Are Fatally Invited” makes for an entertaining and engaging mystery, especially for those who love writers and the writing process.
Rating
My rating is 3.50 stars out of 5 stars.
Book Details
Title: “You are Fatally Invited”
Author: Ande Pliego
Year of Publication: 2025
Number of Pages: 366
Check out the review of “Daisy Darker” by Alice Feeney for another updated take on Agatha Christie’s “And Then There Were None.”
