Title: The Eighth Detective
Author: Alex Pavesi
Genre: detective mystery
PopSugar Reading Challenge prompt: a locked-room mystery
Holy smokes this was a great book. I discovered it via Twitter because Jeff VanderMeer (he wrote The Southern Reach trilogy, Borne, City of Saints and Madmen) recommended it. Anytime an author I like recommends something, I make a note to check it out, if it’s a book I would normally enjoy. And not only was it a great book, it filled the locked-room mystery prompt of the PopSugar Reading Challenge. Most of the locked-room mystery books recommended, I’ve already read. There are actually seven different locked-room mysteries in this one. I’m really surprised this book doesn’t have more people talking about it.
From Goodreads: There are rules for murder mysteries. There must be a victim. A suspect. A detective. The rest is just shuffling the sequence. Expanding the permutations. Grant McAllister, a professor of mathematics, once sat down and worked them all out – calculating the different orders and possibilities of a mystery into seven perfect detective stories he quietly published. But that was thirty years ago. Now Grant lives in seclusion on a remote Mediterranean island, counting the rest of his days.
Until Julia Hart, a sharp, ambitious editor knocks on his door. Julia wishes to republish his book, and together they must revisit those old stories: an author hiding from his past, and an editor, keen to understand it.
But there are things in the stories that don’t add up. Inconsistencies left by Grant that a sharp-eyed editor begins to suspect are more than mistakes. They may be clues, and Julia finds herself with a mystery of her own to solve.
Every other chapter is a short murder mystery, in between short chapters of conversation between Julia and Grant. Julia sees small errors in each mystery, but Grant chalks them up to carelessness. The unraveling of the inconsistencies is so much fun. And by the time I had gotten through all seven mysteries and realized I still had a chunk of the book left, I really had no idea what else I was in store for. I really loved this book. It’s creative, well-written, clever, and intelligent. I will be recommending this one to anyone!
Pleasant Nights 