‘Eight Detectives’ by Alex Pavesi

My next new release for 20th August is ‘Eight Detectives’ by Alex Pavesi. This is a seriously impressive and clever debut novel that plays around with our expectations of detective fiction.

This book offers a range of short stories all held together with an extended interview between a fictional writer and editor about the nature of murder mysteries. The stories explore some of the main permutations of classic crime that people will be familiar with from writers like the great Agatha Christie, but the plots and devices are then discussed and dissected.

The stories are framed by the discussion between Julia Hart, a book editor, who has travelled to an island in the Mediterranean to interview a writer, Grant McAllister, with a view to republishing his 30 year old book, ‘The White Murders’. Each of the 7 stories in this book is presented and discussed by Julia and Grant, the latter sharing his mathematical analysis of detective fiction – sets and subsets of victims and detectives and killers which allow for unlimited combinations in the imagination of the crime writer.

It is a really clever idea and I liked the stories and the analysis generally. I thought it was an interesting premise for a book and it opened my eyes to some of the ‘formulas’ used by writers I admire very much – I’d never really thought of it in these terms before. However, I did feel like some of the stories were so open that there weren’t really enough clues for the reader which did undermine my investment in the stories a little – I don’t know whether this would be an issue with all short stories, but I really like character development and lots of red herrings to think about!

I can see that lots of people will read and love this – it is clever and engaging. Personally, I like a bit more emotional investment in my detective stories that I didn’t always find here – I’m not sure if it was the short story element or the mathematical approach that stopped me from engaging fully.

Overall, I would say that this is definitely worth a read for fans of detective fiction as it is unusual and surprising. It is inventive and will keep you guessing from beginning to end.

I received a free copy of the book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

If you would like buy this book, the link is below. I may earn commission on this at no extra cost to you.

Photo by Samantha Hurley from Burst