They All Fall Down

February 18, 2019
This cleverly updated version of Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None from Hall (A Quiet Storm) stars Miriam Macy, who’s going through a difficult patch: her husband has left her for her teenage daughter’s dance teacher, she has been let go from her job writing aspirational copy for a clothing catalogue, and she’s wanted for questioning by the police for reasons that only become gradually clear to the reader. The one person who has shown her any understanding is her lawyer, Phillip Omeke, and now he’s not taking her calls. When she receives an invitation out of the blue to participate in the pilot of a new reality TV show, she sees it as a lifeline. She agrees to the show’s conditions and flies from L.A. to Puerto Peñasco, Sonora, Mexico, where a yacht is waiting to whisk her to exclusive Mictlan Island. The other invitees are a former policeman, a coke-sniffing chef, a snooty financial adviser, a nervous nurse, a bitchy lawyer, and a sexy merry widow, whose respective secrets emerge in tantalizing installments. When people start to die, Miriam turns sleuth. Hall slips from funny to darkly frightening with elegant ease. Agent: Jill Marsal, Marsal Lyon Literary.

Narrator Janina Edwards gets the listener's heart thudding with her dramatic performance of an Agatha Christie-like thriller. Single-mother Miriam Macy attempts to leave behind a wealth of troubles--emotional and legal--to participate in a reality TV competition set in Mexico on a luxury estate with no connection to the outside world. But what is supposed to be a friendly contest for enough money to dig herself out of her woes turns into an all-out threat to her survival. Edwards maintains the listener's rapt attention with her powerful portrayal of a woman in the middle of a nightmare. She expertly navigates this thriller and keeps the listener with her to the end. V.B. � AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine