Eight Detectives: The Sunday Times Crime Book of the Month

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For a debut novel this is a very brave concept and the author really goes for something different. Although it is a very good effort and certainly an entertaining read I am not sure he quite achieves the best mix of dialogue. I would have preferred more conversation between the editor and author rather than the short stories. It feels at times too much like a book of short stories, nevertheless an entertaining read. Eight Detectives was published in the UK on 20th August 2020 by Michael Joseph, and in the USA on 4th August 2020 (as The Eighth Detective) by Henry Holt. It is also available in several translated editions, with more forthcoming. This book was certainly value for money - eight stories in one and most of them given alternative endings. It was very cleverly written.

Julia Hart is an Editor sent to discuss the possibility of publishing an old work from a retired writer. He is understood to have not only written a collection of murder mysteries but also to be responsible for a mathematical analysis of the genre of which his book is an example. Each day Julia reads one of the stories to him and they discuss it, but as time passes it becomes clear something is amiss. I was intrigued by this debut novel purely because of the premise which sounded so clever but the reality couldn’t have been more different for me and I found it boring and hugely unrewarding. I suspect part of this was down to the fact that the book features seven very average short stories and my reading preference is always for the continuity and depth of a full length novel. Psychologists have a word for those who see patterns where no pattern exists: pareidolia, but I think it does not apply to me. For in my recent reading, and by chance, I have thought over and over, “I didn’t see that coming”. The latest book to make me cry out “I didn’t see that coming” is Alex Pavesi’s Eight Detectives . Thank you so much to Netgalley, Henry Holt and Co. and Alex Pavesi for the opportunity to read and provide an honest review!This is one of the most clever stories I’ve read in a long time and I love clever. It’s also a debut novel by the author and I’ll sign up for the next book he chooses to write and release. I wish I could share more but it would be much too spoilerish. It’s capped with a stunning ending that had me rewinding the audiobook to make certain I’d heard what I heard. And speaking of the audio format, the narrator was outstanding. She was not only responsible for distinctively giving voice to the two main characters but a host of others from the individual stories in the collection, which she handled excellently. This turned out to be a gem in the rough for me. Years ago Grant McAllister wrote “The White Murders”, a book consisting of 7 unique detective stories. The book wasn’t a success and soon was forgotten.

Forget about solving all these crimes; the signal triumph here is (spoiler) the heroine’s survival. The story: Grant McAllister, a retired mathematician from Scotland, now resides on a beautiful Mediterranean island. I liked how Julia pointed to the clues and inconsistencies in the stories. What I didn't like was that we didn't have a way to tie this clues into the bigger mystery ourselves until we were specifically told about it. Maybe it would have worked better for me if we had known all the facts of the White murder from the beginning, so then we could have look ourselves for those clues while reading Grant's stories.

Retailers:

Alex Pavesi's Eight Detectives is a delightfully inventive and enjoyable debut which plays fascinating games with the classic murder mystery and puts a fresh spin on the notion of whodunit. Bravo! -- Martin Edwards, winner of the 2020 Diamond Dagger It won Debut Book of the Year at the Capital Crime Readers Awards and has been long-listed for the Barry Award for Best First Novel and the Goldsboro Books Glass Bell Award. The novel is ¾ made up by these short stories...and dare I say, or write, that they are at best mediocre?

Thirty years later he's retired in a Mediterranean island until Julia Hart, an editor, shows interest in republishing his book, and while revising his stories she discovers certain inconsistencies that point to a bigger mystery. What DOES make a good crime novel - this is the theme Eight Detectives explores throughout it's twisty narrative, where the stories themselves speak to a wider mystery and the effect of reader and author is key Alex Pavesi's Eight Detectives is a delightfully inventive and enjoyable debut which plays fascinating games with the classic murder mystery and puts a fresh spin on the notion of whodunit. Bravo! Martin Edwards, winner of the 2020 Diamond DaggerThis book was a slow burn for me that kept getting better and better as I read it. It was well written and very original! The stories (it's a tale within a tale) have an Agatha Christie like feel to them.