I think the preview quotes had more verve than the book itself. “Dazzling,” said A.J. Finn. Alex North: “I genuinely wanted to applaud at the end.”

They laud The Eighth Detective for its originality, with seven short mysteries wrapped in one larger one that explains them all.

But the stories left me cold and the ending even more so.

If you love pure logic, you’ll dig this. If you’re dying for something more, this one’s not for you.

2 of 5 Stars

Pub Date 04 Aug 2020

Thanks to the author, Henry Holt & Company, and NetGalley for the review copy. Opinions are mine.

#TheEighthDetective #NetGalley

There are two main parts to this novel, one is a series of seven short stories written by a mathematician who has proposed a venn diagram to describe the limitations of the mystery novel, i.e. victim, murderer, detective, etc. Each of these stories is presented as a complete chapter in the book and alternating with a chapter that consists of the potential editor discussing the principles of the book with the author. In this way, the book moves back and forth between creations of the past and the current encounter between these two people. While there are characters who are part of each of the short stories, the book is written in a way that allows the reader to quickly determine they are fictional and their actions are those that have been created by the author.
The short stories are focused on the murder and it’s solution which is at the heart of the book and the solution. There is limited time or space given to character development, creation of the world in which they function, or individual activities outside of what they do that is specifically related to the murder. In the chapters which focus on the two individuals, while there are hints at thoughts and activities for both of them, these are not detailed, so the result is the reader develops very little understanding of who they are and what kinds of lives they had before this meeting they are having.
I was very excited about the concept for this novel, but in reading it I found it to be a bit dry. Because there was little character development and more of an emphasis on telling the reader what happened, the book didn’t engage me on much of an emotional level. Then, some of the mathematical explanations regarding the venn diagram theory seemed more as if I were in a lecture hall than reading a book for fun.
At the end of the book, in epilogue style, there are some alternate endings offered to each of the short stories. These were unexpected and gave a nice boost to the book; but still was not enough to move me into the like column for me personally. The short stories and their explanations might serve as helpful considerations to any budding mystery writer who is working to develop a plot line; and then could be enhanced by doing some character development as well as world building to create a more entertaining mystery. One caution, at least one of the short stories was so similar to a classic it felt like a watered down version of that instead of a fresh story in it’s own right.
My thanks to Henry Holt Publishing Co. and NetGalley for providing me with an advanced digital read copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Many thanks to NetGalley, Henry Holt & Company, and Alex Pavesi for the opportunity to read his debut novel. 4.5 stars for the most imaginative and smart detective story I believe I've ever read!

Decades ago, Grant McAllister self-published a book of 7 detective stories. He came up with a mathematical rule that all detective stories share - they must have a victim, suspect(s), killer(s), and a detective(s). And of course there are many permutations of those rules to make a myriad of different stories. His 7 stories all showcased these rules. Now, McAllister lives a reclusive lifestyle on a Mediterranean island. Julia Hart, an editor, wants to republish these books for her company and makes a visit to the author. She reads each of the stories and they discuss them; however, she finds inconsistencies in the stories that she points out to McAllister. And is there a connection to another murder?

This story is told in such a creative fashion - we get to read each of the 7 detective stories in between chapters where Julia and Grant discuss the story and point out the inconsistencies (which I dare say you will never find all of them!). It's definitely mysteries within mysteries, all harkening back to an era of old-time detective stories. What an amazing debut - I can't wait to read more from this author who himself has a PhD in mathematics.

This reads like a mathematical equation rather than a mystery. Seven mystery stories set inside a larger mystery, different arrangements of different examples of the formula. Unfortunately these all seem like educational data rather then stories meant to draw you in. It's certainly not boring, but it's already becoming a jumble in my memory. A pinned, dead insect really does not convey the wonder of a live butterfly.

4.5 Stars

This book was bloody brilliant and the concept was such an imaginative one! Very, very clever...So clever that I may read it again some day even though I know the ending, or actually because I know the ending and want to read once again to see how Mr. Pavesi adroitly executed the plot.

A fascinating who-done-it that prods and probes at the dark motivations that lurk within us all. From that perspective, it's a great read. I don't think I've ever met such a collection of morally and ethically questionable people. For me, the best part of this read are the secrets and stories everyone brings to this collection rather than the mystery of who's killing who.

The only reason I didn't give it five is because it wasn't emotionally satisfying. I didn't connect with Grant or Julia nor did I feel their angst or pain as I have in other mysteries, but intellectually it was extremely satisfying. This is an amazing debut by Alex Pavesi and I so look forward to what he comes up with next!

4.5 stars -- Wow. This was a slow burn that got better and better as it went, which I honestly find to be somewhat of a rarity in whodunnits. To level set, this is basically a set of interconnected short stories that has an interstitial framing narrative that pops in from time to time. The framing device seems to be set approximately in the mid-1960s, but all the short stories are set in 1930s & 40s England, and each short story plays with different sub-tropes of golden age whodunnits. At the beginning of the book, I was into it but thinking, OK this is pretty good, but nothing too exciting. By the time we got to the middle section of the stories where we had a locked room mystery followed by a really high quality isolated closed circle mystery, I was like, yeah, this is actually really good. But the way this book stuck the landing, at least for my tastes-- I thought it struck a great balance between some expected elements to the resolution but executed in a really exciting and fun way. All in all, I had a great time with this book and think it's a "mystery lovers' mystery."

Alex Pavesi's The Eighth Detective is appealingly old-fashioned. The murder mystery stories were written decades before the book's present-day events take place and are clever; they feel deliberately, self-consciously constructed.

There's a book within a book here, and the fictitious author of the stories has approached the murder mystery genre as a mathematician, exploring every different permutation of the elements of victim/detective/suspect and their overlapping Venn diagram possibilities and combinations.

The stories aren't connected by characters or settings, and they vary in their setups. The premises and details are examined at length as the recluse author explores with his new editor the oddities and inconsistencies within each story. Does he recall his intentions? Are the strange components intentional? Are they connections to a real-life murder from the past? And are either the author or editor reliable protagonists, or are they each hiding something while trying to uncover the truth of the other?

I was hooked enough that the ending left me wanting to go a little deeper with the implications and realizations at a pivotal moment--or to at least prolong the scene a little bit.

I received an advance copy of this book from NetGalley and Henry Holt and Co. in exchange for an unbiased review.

Julia visits Grant on the Mediterranean Island where he lives to edit and publish a book of mystery stories written by him twenty five years ago. Grant, a mathematician, has a theory that there is a mathematical structure to murder mysteries. The story alternates between Julia reading the stories aloud and a discussion with Grant. The stories are
old fashioned mystery tales such as ones writtenin the early twentieth century. Julia feels there is something amiss with Grant and seeks to find out what it is.

This is a different approach to a mystery and I salute the unique approach. The first 3/4 of the book engaged me, but, alas, my attention waned in the last 1/4 of book. Still, it is an intriguing read.

A tale within a tale, this book had a very unique premise. Grant McAllister wrote a book of short detective stories twenty years ago. A publishing company has found the book and thinks it should be republished. Julia Hart is sent to the island that Grant now lives on to interview him and talk about his stories. Alternating between the stories and her interviews, it becomes a bit of a cat and mouse story between the two of them and there’s much more than meets the eye. Its unfortunate that I didn’t really like the short stories and I found the overall book to be quite dry.

Thank you to both NetGalley and Henry Holt & Co. for sending me a pre-released copy of The Eighth Detective in exchange for an honest review.

“It is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma…” If you enjoy reading books about books, or simply appreciate old murder mysteries, then this novel may just be your cup of tea. It is a meta-reference to the traditional murder mystery format that uses short stories to demonstrate how an author can employ the style by playing with a number of variables found within the genre.

At first, the reader is not sure where this story is going. The writing seems stilted, there is some redundancy in word choice and cliché phrasing, but the imagery is beautiful. Do not let the first chapter deter you for any reason. It is one of the mystery stories within the novel that the protagonist, Julia, is reading for her job as an editor.

In chapter two, the reader is introduced to Julia and suddenly everything clicks. We learn about the author of the stories within the novel, a reclusive mathematics professor turned mystery writer named Grant, and his four-part formula for writing mystery novels. The reader now has a sense of where the story may be heading. This is where the pace of the novel gains momentum.

Also, in chapter two and all subsequent modern day passages, the writing switches from the jerky rhythm of an unedited work—prepare yourself for many colons and dashes—to the actual author’s, Alex Pavesi, smooth prose.

By chapter three the pattern emerges and the reader knows the author is intentionally dropping breadcrumbs. For instance, every chapter thus far has mentioned a character from an odd perspective or angle, the color red, an observant individual, two suspects, someone smoking, the words “impending” and “demonic”, etc. There are also some details that appear to intertwine with Grant’s situation from both mystery stories, such as the missing wife, the capsized boat on his beach, and so forth.

The stories within the novel grow longer as the book progresses, which happens to be one of my two critiques about the novel. Many of them could have been pared down. There are a handful of useless sentences scattered throughout that needed an editor’s touch. Again, not sure if that is an intentional effect to show why Julia (the editor) is there (i.e., to edit Grant’s work), or if an actual editor didn’t review this copy for tighter text and sharper sentences.

The second is that I wish there was more of the modern day setting, but then I guess Pavesi and Grant would be telling, not showing the readers and Julia how the genre formula works. It would also take away the chilling undercurrent of uneasiness running throughout, which I happen to love. The book definitely incorporates elements of horror and some of the short stories are downright creepy.

Overall, The Eighth Detective it is an entertaining homage to the murder mystery; one of the stories is even a nod to Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None. Mr. Pavesi proves to be a master storyteller and the book ends with a clever twist.

In this debut novel, mathematics professor Grant McAllister worked out the immutable rules for murder mysteries, then he wrote seven short stories to illustrate them, published as The White Murders. Decades later he is living as a recluse on a Mediterranean island. Editor Julia Hart reaches out to McAllister – she’s interested in republishing his work for a wider audience, but first she’d like to pay him a visit to review the stories. As she reads each mystery back to him, she points out inconsistencies and tries to figure out whether they are innocent lapses or clues that add up to a deeper mystery that McAllister would rather keep hidden.

The stories themselves are not the most compelling, but mystery fans will enjoy the challenge of picking out the mistakes before reading Hart’s commentary. The driving force of this novel comes in its plot twists and unexpected resolution. This is recommended for readers in the mood for a detail-oriented book. Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for an advanced review copy.

This novel is a cerebral experience that requires the reader to pay attention to every detail, like a meta Agatha Christie novel. The book includes seven unrelated mysteries written by Professor Grant McAllister several decades earlier in a volume called The White Murders. Now, an editor by the name of Julia Hart seeks to republish the book. She appears on the island where McAllister lives, and together they review each of the seven stories and analyze how each story fits into the mathematical principles of the mystery story. But with each reading, Hart discovers inconsistencies in the story, which may be clues to a larger story at play.

Anyone who enjoys mysteries will love this book. While each of the seven stories is enjoyable in its own right, the real fun is in discovering how all the pieces fit together in the larger context. I was impressed by the intelligence in the storytelling. Be sure to pay attention to everything. Clues are scattered throughout, but only the patient, careful reader will figure out how it all comes together before the final hand is played.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read an advanced reader's copy in exchange for an honest review.

Amazing and clever nested murder mystery! "The Eighth Detective" is told in short story whodunnit-style mysteries mostly set in the 1930s/1940s, alternating with chapters describing a nearly present-day interview between a young woman and the author of the aforementioned short stories. The short stories are great, atmospheric, somewhat gothic, all with surprising twists. However, the meta mystery about the author of the short stories ends up being even better! What a joy to read. There are so many homages to classic detective fiction and our Queen of Crime, Agatha Christie. I think anyone who enjoyed "The 7.5 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle" or "The Magpie Murders," will also love this book. Can't wait to read more from Alex Pavesi!

I recommend The Eighth Detective for its ingenuity, which is oddly both dazzling and dull at the same time. The first half of the book is extremely slow and spare, and I felt trapped in "Waiting for Godot" or the equally parched world off metafiction. But keep reading. Once you get through the seven stories and the inconsistencies within them, interspersed with the incredibly dry dialogue between Grant McAllister (the purported author of the stories) and Julia Hart (his purported editor), the novel takes off with multiple twists and turns (that unfortunately seem to come out of nowhere at times). In the end, the reader becomes a character in the novel, applying McAllister's mathematical rules for murder mysteries in order to solve this one.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

"There are rules for murder mysteries. There must be a victim. A suspect. A detective.

Grant McAllister, a professor of mathematics, once sat down and worked all the rules out - and wrote seven perfect detective stories to demonstrate. 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 brilliant, 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.

Alex Pavesi's The Eighth Detective is a love letter to classic detective stories with a modern twist, where nothing is as it seems, and proof that the best mysteries break all the rules."

The best mysteries DO break all the rules! Unless it's Josephine Tey, when she breaks the rules it's not fun.

Despite my general lack of interest in short stories, I really liked this one. The book is a back-and-forth with short stories from one of the main character's books and the contemporary narrative interaction between a journalist and said author. There's mystery and intrigue on every page, both in the shorts and in the longer story, and I found the alternations generally quite engaging and readable. I loved the way it all tied together - this book really is a love song for murder mysteries, and I found the ending satisfying and delightful. This was a great find!!

I’m about to do something I don’t think I’ve ever done before (and writing this during a global pandemic, when my city has already been under lockdown for more than four months, that’s really sayin’ something). I’m going to recommend a book I basically hated.

“Wait, you’re gonna whuh..??”, right? Believe me, I. Know. Just bear with me for a few, and we’ll get there… via Alex Pavesi’s The Eighth Detective.
_______________

Grant McAllister—an elderly mathematician who’s been living life as a recluse on a remote island in the middle of the Mediterranean for the last three decades—did something noteworthy, a long time ago… but almost no one on the planet knows what he did.

Julia Hart—an editor for a London publishing company—is one of the few who does… so she flies out to his tiny island with a proposal. Grant wrote and self-published (with a minuscule run) a book back in the early 1940s, shortly before he hied off to the island, in which he laid out precise mathematical formulas that all murder mystery stories must follow, along with seven mysteries he penned specifically to illustrate those formulas. Julia, learning of his long-forgotten work, wants to edit and publish the stories, bringing his concepts to a wider, modern audience and detailing why he virtually disappeared all those years ago.

The fly in the ointment, she soon discovers, is that Grant is not at all what one would call forthcoming… not with talking about his past, nor in explaining what he was thinking when he wrote each of the stories; in other words, he’s not really giving her anything she needs.

What she decides, then, is to take a different tack; she will read aloud each of the stories in the book—refreshing the older man’s memory, since he insists he hasn’t reread them in all the years he’s been on the island—after which she will question him about his thoughts and motivations.

As she goes through them, Julia spots odd little inconsistencies—some in each story—which Grant pooh-poohs as little inside jokes, solely for his own amusement. But Julia isn’t to be put off so easily; she knows that there must be more to Grant’s story—both his personal one and deeper meanings behind each of the mysteries in his book—which she determines to do a little detective work about, on her own.
_______________

If it sounds like an intriguing-enough twist for a mystery book, then I certainly agree. (That is, after all, the very reason I wanted to read The Eighth Detective.) But… as I mentioned earlier, I basically hated ninety-eight percent of this book.

For one thing, I felt a surprisingly-strong dislike for both of the main characters. Grant was, by design, not really intended to be likable, but Julia didn’t come across that much better; I found her annoying, when she should’ve been the character I could really get behind.

Almost every single character within the individual mysteries was unlikable, as well—from moderately tolerable to thoroughly detestable. (Seriously… never have I read so many short stories in which everyone was so distasteful; it was… disturbing, to say the least.)

The only (and I do mean ONLY) mitigating factor is the ending, when author Pavesi threw in a couple of twists I definitely did not see coming. They were believable enough, and unexpected enough, for me to not be completely disgusted that I’d spent all that time reading something so unenjoyable… but barely.

So, because of the interesting spin on mystery fiction—and those clever twists at the very end—I’m giving The Eighth Detective a qualified recommendation. Just don’t say I didn’t give you fair warning first.
~GlamKitty

(I received an Advance Reader Copy of The Eighth Detective, in order to read early and share my unbiased opinions on; it will be released in print 4 August 2020.)

Missing good old fashioned murder mysteries with a twist? Then, 'Hello Agatha!", you've found JUST what the reading doctor ordered! This mystery reminds us why we love mystery fiction- the puzzles, the misdirects, the book that makes you go, 'wait, what?" at the end! Taking the reader through a fictional book, including 8 different mysteries, you get a bit of everything you love about them here, while trying to fogure out what is really going on- is Julia what she seems? Why does Grant live in isolation? It's a fun book that can easily be stopped and picked back up again, but you may find yourself rapidly turning the pages by midway and not wanting to stop reading!

This novel harks back to the very early days of detective fiction, when crimes were usually solved by observation and deduction rather than forensics.

The story: Grant McAllister, a retired mathematician from Scotland, now resides on a beautiful Mediterranean island. In 1937, when McAllister was a graduate student, he wrote a research paper called 'The Permutations of Detective Fiction', in which he posited that every detective story has characters in four categories: victim(s), suspect(s), detective(s), and killer(s). The categories can overlap, however, so a detective can be the killer, etc. McAllister illustrates this with a Venn diagram:

To illustrate his ideas, McAllister wrote seven detective stories, and published them in a book called 'The White Murders.'

Twenty-five years later, a publisher called 'Blood Type Books' wants to re-issue McAllister's stories, with an introduction explaining the mathematical basis of the tales. To this end, the publisher sends editor Julia Hart to interview McAllister.

At each session with the author, Julia reads one story aloud, and then she and McAllister discuss it in detail.
The seven detective stories, respectively, have the following victims:

◆ a man murdered in his bedroom.

◆ a woman who dies when she goes off a cliff.

◆ a young woman who's drowned in a tub.

◆ a man killed at a private party in a restaurant.

◆ ten people killed on a tiny island.

◆ an old woman smothered in her bed.

◆ a victim who comes back as a ghost.

As Julia and McAllister discuss each of these tales, it's clear the editor has an agenda. She thinks McAllister killed a woman called Elizabeth White decades ago, a crime the press dubbed the 'White Murder.' Furthermore, Julia thinks McAllister left clues about this in his stories....which she tries to winkle out. Thus, it's a bit of a cat and mouse game between Julia and McAllister, with each one keeping secrets.

The Eighth Detective is an entertaining read, with some clever surprises. However I felt like I was REALLY reading stories published in the early 1900s....stories that had very unrealistic premises. For instance, more than one character in the book finds a dead body (or bodies) and never bothers to call the police. Instead, they proceed to investigate the crime themselves. Moreover there's an instance of police brutality that's over the top for me.

That said, fans of old timey detective stories would enjoy this book.

Thanks to Netgalley, the author (Alex Pavesi), and the publisher (Henry Holt and Company) for a copy of the book.

A clever and original addition to the thriller genre. A recommended first purchase for collections where crime fiction is popular.