Everyone in the Group Chat Dies

The novel alternates between two timelines set in the small English town of Crowhurst. Present-day chapters follow narrator Kirby Cornell as she investigates threatening messages from a dead woman's phone, while past chapters reveal how that woman died and what Kirby and her flatmates were hiding.

In the present day, Kirby, an almost 31-year-old former journalist, works as a pool cleaner in Magaluf, Spain, having fled Crowhurst a year earlier. While lounging by the hotel pool, she receives a message on the Deadbeats, her old flatmates' group chat, from Esme: "miss me?" The message is unsettling because Esme died 12 months ago.

Twelve months earlier, Kirby (real name Clare Dangerfield, using her mother's surname and childhood nickname to hide her identity) lived in Flat Four of Stewart Heights with three flatmates: Dylan Barnes, a trainee chef; Dave "The Legend" Watkins, a golf instructor; and Seema, a dental nurse obsessed with true crime. Dylan's mother, Betty, ran the local café, Fast Forward. Crowhurst's only notoriety stemmed from a 30-year-old tragedy: A man named Peter Doyle had murdered five teenagers during the annual Crawe Fair, an ancient harvest festival featuring a ritual in which a resident dressed as Jack Daw, a crow-costumed bogeyman ceremonially driven from town. Doyle reportedly jumped off the nearby Staker Point cliff afterward.

One evening, a confident young woman named Esme arrived, claiming to be their new flatmate. She was an influencer on ShowMe, a video-sharing app similar to TikTok, where she investigated cold cases under the handle @ShowMeSherlock for nearly half a million followers she called "the Watsons." She had come to Crowhurst because she suspected something was wrong with the Peter Doyle case. That night, Esme pushed Kirby into an open roadwork pit while filming, causing Kirby to snap Esme's gold necklace, which fell into the hole. Esme posted the video without permission, and it went viral. The next morning, Esme was gone, and a group chat message read: "crowhurst killer is a lie." Kirby deduced autocorrect had changed "alive" to "a lie," meaning Esme believed Peter Doyle survived.

Kirby pitched the story to her editor at the Crowhurst Gazette, Trevor Phillips, who refused and warned her not to investigate. Despite this, Kirby and Dylan found Esme's bag near the fairground containing a 1996 Gazette front page with "LIAR" scrawled under the headline about a witness seeing Doyle jump. With help from the Watsons, Kirby identified Superintendent Robert Morris, Crowhurst's police chief, in the photo and realized Morris had lied about not attending the 1996 fair. Dylan's mother, Betty, also appeared, visibly pregnant despite claiming she had been abroad that summer.

When a new video appeared on Esme's ShowMe account announcing a "mental health break," Kirby realized it had to be old footage: Esme appeared to wear the gold necklace, which had been at the bottom of the roadwork pit since Thursday. Kirby retrieved the necklace, proving the video was fake, and police officially declared Esme missing. At a press conference, Kirby secretly recorded Morris admitting the body at the base of Staker Point had never been formally identified.

Meanwhile, Kirby and Dylan grew closer, and she confided her real identity: She was the daughter of semi-famous actor Jason Dangerfield, star of the 1990s TV show Necktie, and had been fired from her London journalism job after writing a viral article about her father that damaged his career. On the day of the Crawe Fair, Kirby confronted Betty, who confessed she had been Peter Doyle's secret girlfriend, that Dylan was Peter's son, and that she had told Peter to run the night of the murders to protect their unborn child. Betty had lied to police, claiming she saw him jump so they would stop searching.

Kirby followed Dave into the woods and up to Staker Point, where she found Peter Doyle's old caravan. Inside, she discovered Esme alive, with Dave bringing her supplies. The disappearance had been a hoax to boost Esme's follower count. Kirby had been the unwitting pawn whose genuine fear generated the viral content Esme needed. Dylan and Seema arrived, and when Kirby threatened to expose the fraud, Esme retaliated by threatening to reveal on camera that Dylan was Peter Doyle's son. In the struggle near the cliff edge, Dylan grabbed for Esme's phone and she lost her footing, falling to her death from Staker Point. Dave persuaded the group to cover up the truth, and all four voted to lie, agreeing to say Kirby had found Esme after an accidental fall.

Back in the present, threatening messages multiply from "Esme's" phone: "Everyone in the group chat dies." Kirby learns that Max Robertson, a former flatmate who recently left the chat, has been killed by a train. She returns to Crowhurst and finds Seema murdered at the dental office, a black feather left in the blood. A group chat message confirms the pattern: "You leave the group, you die." She then finds evidence that Dave has also been killed. After a terrifying encounter with a figure in the Jack Daw costume, she flees.

Morris cryptically tells Kirby to "check her facts," leading her to a Surreywide article revealing that Peter Doyle's body has been formally identified through DNA voluntarily provided by Dylan. Kirby pieces together the killer's identity after noticing telephone lines shaking in a ShowMe video, a vibration caused only when the Gazette's printing press runs. She drives to Crowhurst Business Park and finds the press in operation, with Dylan alive but bound and gagged. Standing before her is Trevor Phillips.

Trevor reveals himself as the true Crowhurst Killer. He murdered the five teenagers in 1996 to make the town infamous and boost Gazette sales, framed Peter Doyle by planting the costume in his caravan, and pushed Doyle off Staker Point. Years later, when a Netflix series about the murders fell through, Trevor recruited Esme to fake her disappearance and revive Crowhurst's notoriety. Operating online as the Watson "Shellfish_diet," he guided both Esme and Kirby throughout the investigation. After Esme's death, he used her recovered phone to send threatening messages, luring the Deadbeats back to eliminate them. He has printed a final Gazette headlined "Crowhurst Killer's Revenge," intending to frame Dylan as a copycat killer and cast himself as the lone surviving hero.

Trevor stabs Dylan and corners Kirby above the press. Desperate, Kirby shakes her wrist to trigger her Fitbit's 10,000-step congratulatory alarm. The piercing noise incapacitates Trevor, who has hyperacusis, a condition of extreme noise sensitivity. Dylan, still alive, tackles Trevor; Kirby kicks him onto the press and hits the start button. Gravely wounded, Dylan records a final video confession on Kirby's phone, revealing that Trevor was the real killer, that Esme faked her disappearance, and that Dylan accidentally caused her death. He dies in Kirby's arms, and Kirby sends the video to Morris.

In the epilogue, Kirby has moved to a studio flat near London, taken a job at a theater, and enrolled in acting classes. She has deleted her ShowMe account and declined offers to consult on a documentary about the case. Reconciled with her mother, she walks through Crowhurst one last time, passes Stewart Heights, now being converted into a Starbucks, and boards a train to London, silencing a new group chat notification as the countryside rushes past.