Ten by Gretchen McNeil
Throwback high school slasher whodunit
Ten teenagers from two different high schools are invited to a house party at a luxurious beach house on an island off the Washington Coast. One-by-one, they’re murdered.
It’s hardly an original conceit, but Ten is a great example of this horror subgenre: part murder mystery, part slasher.
A huge part of what makes Ten work is its characters.
The protagonist and narrator, Meg, is a likable social outcast. She’s not one of the popular kids, although she’s long been infatuated with the school’s star football player, TJ.
But even if they weren’t from different social circles, she could never pursue him because her best friend Minnie has loudly declared him as her crush…
And Meg could never betray Minnie.
Because Minnie suffers from considerable mental health issues, because Minnie chose Meg even though it meant being dumped by the popular kids, because Minnie depends on Meg.
Although Meg is starting to realize that their relationship is increasingly one-sided, and that Minnie often treats her as a punching bag.
When the two of them are invited to an exclusive house party, it seems like an opportunity they couldn’t possibly pass up. But when they arrive at the island, things quickly start to unravel.
The first death occurs in the middle of the night. Although it looks and smells like a suicide, the sudden loss of power — and any hope the teens might have had of contacting the outside world — strongly suggests otherwise.
Likewise, a DVD vowing vengeance on all assembled suggests that there is a killer amongst them. Or that they are not quite so alone as they thought.
As the highschoolers couple up, there are endless red herrings and swirls of doubt as to who could be trusted. Minnie hooks up with a guy she just met. Meg grows closer to TJ — but with a murder on the loose that could literally be anyone, can he really be trusted?
And then Meg finds the diary of a dead girl who apparently had run ins with each of the stranded guests, and their manner of death seems eerily appropriate for the wrongs they supposedly inflicted on her.
Ten is a rip-roaring read that will keep you guessing throughout. It’s a twisty-turny thriller that does not let up.
It does a great job of capturing the sense of being a senior in high school: of being hopefully optimistic yet slightly apprehensive about whatever is coming next, but also filled with regret for what you’re either about to lose or else have already missed out on
All of this is perfectly encapsulated in the character of Meg, most notably with regards to her complicated relationships with both Minnie and TJ.
There are also plenty of imaginative (and grisly!) deaths that tip the scales of this novel into credibly horror waters.
Ten is a tight, fast-paced, page-turner of a horror novel.