What happens when ambition gives way to the human. Are that is the mind. This is the situation we gave when Julia Hart travels to a secluded lair of an mathematician turned mystery writer. What follows is as contorted and twisted as the mind can endure. It was thrilling to the end. It grabbed you in a vise of a plot whose end will leave you hungry for more. Happy reading

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<p>The format was really fun and unique. We meet Julia Hart who has traveled to a remote island to interview Grant McAllister to reissue his old book about murders. Each rule is demonstrated in a short story that proves his rule, interspersed with chapters of Julia and Grant's interview.</p>
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I really enjoyed the short stories, more than I thought I would. They were all engaging and interesting. I looked forward to them even more than the overall general mystery behind Julia and Grant.

The format was a bit hard to get into at first. I didn't know going in the book was laid out like that so it took me a moment. But I think it worked. Grant and Julia are not that interesting by themselves, until the very end, and so the story stories really carried the urgency of the book forward. That said, I wish there was more character to both Julia and Grant throughout the book. They were merely vehicles for the short stories to be told and didn't get interesting until the ending.

>I would be interested in reading more of the author, looking for a longer main story format. For so much of this story, Julia and Grant's main mystery is over shadowed by the short stories until the very end when their connection is revealed. A couple of the short stories I wished they had gone on a bit longer.

With plenty of twists and turns, <em>The Eighth Detective</em> is a fast read, perfect for readers who want a little something different. I'm interested in more of Alex's books because the short stories were so entertaining.

As an avid mystery reader, this book was a treasure trove of short mysteries. I liked each and every story and really liked the originality of combining these mysteries within a mystery. Unfortunately, the ending was a little lackluster and would have been more effective if more time had been spent on developing the main characters and their roles in the main mystery.

An editor goes to an unidentified island to find a reclusive mathematician who wrote a thesis on the math of mysteries and then wrote a collection of mysteries as examples of his mathematical theories. The editor and her publisher wish to reissue the book so she goes to talk to the author to have some questions answered and to help with a new introduction. The book switches between the mysteries written by the mathematician and the interviews between the new editor and the author. I found the brief mysteries very interesting, sometimes more interesting than the 'real life' interactions between the editor and author. It wasn't until the final few chapters that we see that everyone's motives, intentions and identities are not what they seem. This was a uniquely formatted book and I enjoyed reading it. I received a free copy of this ebook from NetGalley.

Did not care for this book or the characters. Some of the murders were interesting, but generally were not "page turners".

I really wanted to like this book, but I just didn't. While I applaud the author for trying something different, it didn't work. It felt as if the author was too constrained by the narrative device, and that prevented the story from being compelling.

Wow! This book left me thinking about it as I fell asleep and when I woke up the next day. Reminiscent of Agatha Christie, these short but compiling stories are meant to prove the mathematical basis for all murder mystery stories. Each story is more complex and a bit longer than the last one, with discussions between the author and potential publisher after each. I find myself looking forward to the revelations the publisher has after reading each story and the faintly odd reactions by the author. Even when I thought I had things figured out, I never saw that ending coming!

Published by Henry Holt and Co. on August 4, 2020

What defines a murder mystery? The Eighth Detective explores that question, and even provides examples of the definition’s permutations, in a plot that seems to be one thing and turns out to be something quite different.

Before his retirement, Grant McAllister was a professor of mathematics at the University of Edinburgh. A fan of murder mysteries, McAllister authored a paper in 1937 that purports to define the mathematical structure of murder mysteries in all their variations. To illustrate some of the key principles of his definition, McAllister wrote seven stories. In the 1940s, he collected the stories and the paper in a self-published volume called The White Murders.

The reader is told that the long-forgotten volume came into the hands of a small press publisher who thought it deserved an audience. He dispatches an editor, Julie Hart, to track down McAllister, who seems to have isolated himself on a Mediterranean island. Hart discusses the stories and the mathematical paper with McAllister in a series of interviews.

The Eighth Detective opens with the first short story that appears in The White Murders. The next chapter relates Hart’s discussion of the story with McAllister. The book then alternates short stories with discussions until it reaches the final discussion, in which Hart reveals the solution to a separate mystery that she has uncovered.

Alex Pavesi scores points for inventing such a clever concept. The stories are ordinary murder mysteries, some better than others. None are particularly impressive but none are unworthy of publication. As Hart reads them to McAllister, she spotlights inconsistencies in the text and wonders whether they are deliberate. McAllister’s answers are vague. At the novel’s end, we learn that we have been deceived about the stories in a way that I won’t spoil. The deception is critical to the plot and to a full understanding of the stories themselves.

The math in the research paper that Hart finds so complex consists of nothing more than Venn diagrams. McAllister defines every murder mystery in terms of four ingredients. With one exception, a story that lacks any of those ingredients is not a true murder mystery. Unsurprisingly, a murder mystery requires at least one murder victim, at least one killer, at least two suspects, and typically (but not inevitably) someone who solves the crime. The categories overlap, so that (for example) the detective or the victim might also be the murderer. McAllister also believes that the main structural variations of mystery stories can be broken down into archetypes. The stories are meant to illustrate seven of those.

Murder mysteries often depend on surprise endings (in many, the killer is the person we least suspect), a convention that, Hart opines, has carried over into the broader crime novel genre, even as traditional murder mysteries have diminished in popularity. The Eighth Detective follows that convention by serving up a couple of surprise endings. One changes the reader’s understanding of Hart (just as Hart changes the reader’s understanding of McAllister), while the other wraps up some dangling clues to an unsolved crime that Hart discovers in The White Murders.

Cleverness is its own reward in crime fiction. If The Eighth Detective didn’t blow me away, and if the “mathematical” analysis of murder mysteries seems a bit simplistic, those faults are easily overshadowed by Pavesi’s careful attention to storytelling details that create, in the end, an inventive novel that is both a murder mystery and a different kind of mystery — the story of two protagonists who each endeavor to keep secrets from the other for reasons of their own.

RECOMMENDED

This one was one I had been excited for and was so happy to be able to read it as an ARC from Netgalley. However, after the 3rd short murder mystery within the book, I was finding myself wanting to skip ahead.

The short mysteries were all interesting and I assumed they were leading up to a bigger reveal at the end, but the author basically told us to look for clues and inconsistencies within each story. So I was keeping track of all the smaller mysteries, within the bigger mystery and then had to keep track of details.

I thought the "twists" at the end didn't pay off. I kept waiting and waiting for it to gain momentum but it never did. And then there were two smaller mysteries that were almost exact knockoffs of very famous Murder Mysteries.

It was a decent collection of short mysteries but the overall mystery didn't quite pay off.

The Eighth Detective is a tiresome collection of seven so-called perfect murders that follow a mathematical formula that all murder mysteries must follow. Huh? Yeah, exactly. Whatever. So, seven boring stories that are then all gone over a second time so certain things can be pointed out that go against the formula and other things are revealed to give different yet still uninteresting endings. With the big reveal as the eighth murder mystery. It would have helped if there weren’t SEVEN stories. Maybe just four or five especially if they’re going to go over them all a second time. YAWN. I only finished this because I got picked to review it through @netgalley under the expectation that I write a review on it, otherwise I would have gladly written this one off as a DNF.

The Eighth Detective is perfect for any mystery fan! It is essentially a collection of short stories from Grant McAllister, a math professor, who worked out the formula for a perfect murder mystery and wrote seven to demonstrate. Now he lives on a remote island when ambition editor Julia Hart shows up wanting to publish them. She reads him the stories and begins to notice inconsistencies that she realizes may be done on purpose and are, in fact, clues. And thus begins the bigger mystery. This story is perfect for fans of Agatha Christie, detective novels in general, and murder mysteries. It is entirely original and well-thought out. I truly cannot recommend this enough!

THe Eighth Detective (eight detectives in England) analyzes the murder mystery genre. Grant McAllister wrote seven murder mysteries that he uses to illustrate the rules of murder mysteries. Years later, Julia Hart turns up on his doorstep to talk about the seven murder mystery stories, noting the inconsistencies between in each story. Is there something bigger at play?

I could not put this book down. It is such a clever collection of mysteries, presented by characters the reader can't totally trust.

Many years ago, Grant McAllister wrote an academic paper on ‘The Permutations of Detective Fiction’ in which he states murder mysteries must have four ingredients: suspects, a victim, a detective, a killer. These can be put together in different ways, but there is a set number of formulas that can be created with these elements. To demonstrate each, he writes a series of short stories for each and publishes them along with his paper. Now living alone on a secluded island in the Mediterranean, he is approached by an editor who wants to reprint the stories with a less academic introduction.

These stories are presented to us as the editor, Julia Hart, reads them aloud to McAllister and the two discuss each story. Hart begins to notice peculiar inconsistencies in the stories and finds herself increasingly immersed in a mystery of her own in which she becomes the eighth detective. The original stories are read to Grant by Julia and they then discuss them.

I loved the short stories, and the clues they offer about the greater mystery happening in this book! This is a great read for all mystery lovers!

Four stars!! Grant McAllister is a mathematician who published a research paper called The Permutations of Detective Fiction. In it, he postulated the basic structure of a proper murder mystery and all the possible combinations. Following those postulates, he also wrote a collection of seven murder mysteries titled The White Murders, with each of these stories representing one of the many manifestations this genre can present. Now, many years later, he lives on a Mediterranean island and is visited by Julia Hart, an editor who has studied his work and wants to republish his stories. That’s a great plan, except for the fact that soon Julia starts noticing there are a few things McAllister appears to be hiding…

What a clever book this was!! I loved the structure, the style, and how each story was so different! Between the seven stories, Julia and Grant discuss what happened in the one they just read, and he proceeds to explain how his theories are applied to each one. Curiously, I didn’t really enjoy the ending of the book because it felt too rushed and, truthfully, I couldn’t really connect with either of the main characters, so I didn’t care much about what happened to them. However, that didn’t ruin the book for me, not at all!

The seven stories contained in this book were so good, and the twists and turns in them were so expertly done, I cannot give it less than four stars. I really liked this book, I had fun reading all of the ingenious plots and I will absolutely read more books by this author!!

Wow what a fantastic mystery! I love the layout of this book, it’s not just a linear story. I appreciate the references to mathematics. It was a great read!

The Eighth Detective was a very entertaining book .I enjoy short stories that revolve around mystery and suspense.,and this one fit the bill. Basically the book was a group of short story mysteries that are being presented as an unpublished book being edited for publication.the interviews between the author and editor bind the book together . With a few twists and turns and more than one surprise at the end,I would recommend this book.

Thank you to Macmillan Audio, Henry Holt & Company and Netgalley for the ALC and e-ARCs, which I read in conjunction with each other.

I loved this book! A mystery within a mystery within a mystery, this is a perfect homage to Agatha Christie and the other true masters of the mystery genre.

Each story is a delight to listen to and you can definitely recognize many nods to famous mysteries within. The twists, both within each story and within the book as a whole, were fantastic.

I read and enjoyed Eight Perfect Murders by Peter Swanson, but frankly I think this book is far more well-done and literary than that one. The audiobook version of this book was excellent, with a British narrator, which I have a real affinity for. It would be great to read with your eyes or your ears! PICK.

This review will be updated with my instagram review once posted. Thank you!

This was a smart book, an unusual book, with many mysteries in it, the short story mysteries, the mystery of the author and his secrets and the interviewer and her secrets. while it was interesting, i can't say i liked it. somehow the old style of writing mysteries and the short story format left me a bit cold

An interesting premise, marred by a lackluster ending.

Not terribly long ago, I read The Eighth Sister, by another author. Now, The Eighth Detective (Eight Detectives, for the UK version) is here. Did I miss a memo?

In The Eighth Detective, Grant McAllister, a mathematician, once worked out a math formula for detective fiction - there must exist at least one victim, one detective, and so forth. As a proof of the claims he made, he wrote seven short stories, all of which contain one or more elements of his formula. He called the collection The White Murders, self-published one hundred copies, then moved to an unnamed island in the Mediterranean.

Julia Hart, ostensibly an editor with a small press, visits McAllister on his island, to sort the stories and edit them for publication.

The format of the overall book is this: one of the stories, which w find Julia is reading back to McAllister, then a conversation chapter, where Julia is reading the last line(s) of each story, then points out items that belong to his math theory, and then items that do not fit the story - inconsistencies. She asks if he purposely wrote these into the stories, and he claims he must have, but that his memory after thirty years have passed between his writing does not allow him to recall these things concretely.

There are seven stories comprising The White Murders, each with their own detective of sorts - that is, some have actual detectives, and some featuring amateurs. As each is read and discussed, more and more of the math is brought in, up to and including Venn diagrams. Each story is certainly what could be expected of the time they were written: crimes are solved by deduction and conversation (LOTS of conversation), and while some of the deaths are rather macabre, there are no lingering, lengthy, detailed description of the gore. If you expect to find car (or horse) chases or gunfights, you will be sorely disappointed. Think more Agatha Christie and less Robert Ludlum.

What we do not get, at least for most of the book, is any sort of character development of the two people about whom we should care the most: McAllister and Hart. Hart, from time to time, mentions an unsolved murder back in the UK of a woman with the last name White, and points out that elements of that murder appear in each of the stories. Was the impetus for these stories that murder? McAllister denies this was the case, and claims to not knowing he had placed these real life things into his fictional tales. He does, though, allow that perhaps he did so unconsciously do so.

As we reach the end of the book, we derive that Julia Hart herself is the eighth detective, looking into the very murder she has repeatedly questioned McAllister about. We also get more narrative of what she does when she leaves his company for the day and returns to her hotel, and that informs the big reveal at the end.

I'll not go into spoiler territory, but all is not as it appears on this lovely island or with McAllister.

Toward the end, the stories became a bit tedious, as did the math. The explanations we get from Julia Hart were confusing at first, given the swaps she'd done with material and the way they were presented, and her "testing" of McAllister. By then, this reader, at least, knew what she suspected.

The stories...well, at least one did not contain enough clues for the reader to actually solve the crime, unlike the larger story that wrapped them. Instead, we get a monologue telling us how things were - the story with the department store fire, for instance, was terrible in this regard, and would be terrible in any era if one didn't have ESP.

Overall, I'm giving it three stars out of five.

Thanks to Henry Holt and NetGalley for the review copy.

The Eighth Detective by Alex Pavesi follows editor, Julia Hart, in the 1960's tracking down the reclusive author, Grant McAllister, whose short story murder mystery collection Julia wishes to republish. Grant's stories from the 30's and 40's follow a simple set of rules he has come up with that highlight all aspects of the murder mystery genre. As Julia reads more, she becomes increasingly unsettled to realize that there are things in the stories that don't make sense. Intricate clues that seem to reference a real murder, one that's remained unsolved for thirty years.

This book was a super fun, meta take on the murder mystery genre. I absolutely adored the isolated closed circle short story that took place on the island. That short story was clearly a homage to one of my favorite books of all time And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie. I think the most disappointing part for me was I wanted a better conclusion to the overall mystery in this book. However, I did really enjoy the discrepancies in all the short stories and trying to catch them all before they were pointed out. Overall, I would highly recommend this to people who love classic murder mystery novels such as Agatha Christie and people that enjoy the meta commentary of the murder mystery genre.

I received this book free from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.