Fair Play is described as “genre-bending”, an homage to early twentieth-century detective novels, as well as a “searing exploration of grief and loss”. Abigail gathers a cast of characters at an AirBnB on New Year's Eve to celebrate her brother’s birthday with a murder mystery party, as is their tradition. But her brother, Benjamin, doesn’t survive the night, and the esteemed Detective Bell is called in to solve the case.

This book almost felt like a collaboration between two authors or two books patched together. I had a lot of fun with the locked-room mystery part. There was a lot of metalepsis and playing with the “rules” of locked room mysteries, which brought a lot of humor to the story. As with all detective stories, I had fun trying to puzzle out who the killer was, but there were some twists in the form which made this an interesting take on a detective tale. Ultimately, I kind of wish there was a bit more depth to the clues and such, but I had fun regardless.

But the tone of the present-day narrative that deals with Abigail’s grief (and that of the other characters) is quite the tone shift, and it didn’t work for me to have them interwoven together because of that tone shift. I think both portions of the book are compelling, but I have a feeling that readers will gravitate to one storyline over another. (Though I think both storylines will have their fans!)

Still, Fair Play is a unique and engaging read and I am definitely going to be on the lookout for future works by this author. I would recommend it for fans of murder mysteries and/or those who like genre-bending works.

*Thank you to NetGalley and Harper for the complimentary eARC for the purpose of an honest review!*

Hmm. I suppose playful is the right adjective for this author’s mix and match version of a
Country house mystery complete with 4th wall-piercing asides and a multiplicity of murderers. Was I engaged by the genre knowingness and mucking about? Not especially. More memorable was the grief experienced by Abigail, the surviving sister. This aspect had some nice depiction and detail.
Did I feel the two dimensions meshed , or needed to sit adjacent? No. In fact I couldn’t see the point of all the meta stuff. Maybe if I were a crime aficionado the book would chime louder.

Abigail is at her organizational hostess best when preparing for the annual New Year's Eve murder mystery party. This year she has rented a large country house for the festivities. It's always extra special because the next day is the birthday of her brother Benjamin. Abigail arrives early at the house and begins preparations for the party. Throughout the day, the rest of the guests arrive. Most of them are friends of Benjamin's as well as his former fiancée and, for the first time, one of his female co-workers. The friends gather, eat, play games, and perform their parts as written by Abigail in the murder mystery. Once it is solved, everyone continues to party until one-by-one they fall asleep. In the morning, one guest doesn't come down for breakfast, and when their locked bedroom door is forced open, it's discovered that person is dead. At this point, the reader is given three different version of the Golden Age "Fair Play" rules for mysteries. Mostly these consist of the reader getting all the clues at the same time as the detective, and the directive that no supernatural or other strange forces be responsible for the crime. Also, the murderer must be one of the main characters who's already been introduced -- no passing vagrants or "foreigners." Or staff, for that matter. After the rules, the detective arrives in the form of Auguste Bell and his sidekick, the perpetually puzzled Sacker. It soon becomes apparent that things have changed. Abigail and her brother now own the stately mansion where the gathering took place, and they also employee a few staff members. It seems we have been transported back 100 years into the "golden age." Bell is firmly aware that he is a character in a mystery, often referring to the fact as well as what he's going to be doing in upcoming chapters. The main characters in this mystery are the same ones with the same relationships as the ones in the beginning chapters of the book. Occasionally, alternating with Bell's questioning of suspects, a chapter from the modern-day characters grappling with the death that occurred during the New Year's Eve party is included.

I'm not really sure why the present-day people are included in the story if the main bulk of it was to write a tongue-in-cheek Golden Age detective mystery. The modern "crime" is not really touched on or explained very well, and the present-day action all seems to revolve around the grief of everyone after one of their own dies. It really seems as if two different books were written with the same characters, 100 years apart, and just stitched together. The question remains: why? The mystery parts of the book are funny and the different explanations for the crime show how all of the clues can be interpreted to show guilt from many different directions. I'm just not sure how the modern action fit into the story. There was also a weird flashback story tacked on at the end that added nothing to the rest of the book. I'm not sure what the book was trying to accomplish, but it didn't really succeed, in my opinion.