Rupert Holmes

What if there was a place you could go to learn how to delete a problematic person from your life? This place would teach you the proper methods to delete someone from existence, so long as the removal of that person would benefit people, no one would truly mourn their loss, and your cause was just. Well, McMasters might be the place for you. The downside is that you will never truly know where McMasters is located. Also, you can never speak of the school once you graduate. And if you fail to complete your thesis, you will also be deleted.

This is the basic premise of this novel, and if a book that purports to teach murder can be considered cozy well, this is it. For some reason I found this to be a comfortable, cozy read, and even though the characters were in danger throughout their McMasters' education, I never felt on the edge of my seat with suspense. And I think that's the main drawback on this book, the reason for 4 stars instead of 5. The subject matter was treated seriously, but certainly lighter than it could have been to convey a proper sense of danger. But it was still an interesting read and I'm glad it stumbled across it at Goodwill.… (mais)

DNF at 26%. The presentation is too choppy and the characters are all irritatingly stupid. Especially our MC. And perhaps the school rules become clearer later in the book, but I don’t care enough to find out. (A school that nobody’s heard about has paying students and sponsors? And others get kidnapped to attend but can only leave by death or graduating. The staff boast about simulations of deadly situations, but do nothing when students try to actively kill one another. Including a stranger they have never met. Or how about the fact that students seem to attend classes to learn all manners of murder, even though they are allegedly only allowed one kill in the real world that needs to be planned and executed flawlessly. Zero. Logic.)

I was already bored but then I heard the “motivation and justification” for Cliff’s future murder. It just further proves the point that there is no point.… (mais)