Former Maths Professor Grant McAllister writes a paper ‘The Permutations of Detective Fiction’ in which he demonstrates that crime fiction comprises of four ingredients:- Suspects, The Victim, The Detective, The Killer(s). He then writes seven short stories collectively known as The White Murders in which he demonstrates his theory which are published many years ago. He now lives in seclusion on a Mediterranean island where he is visited by editor Julia Hart with a view to republishing the stories. Julia however, notes 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.

This is a well written and original novel, it’s clever and a really good puzzle throughout. The format works well and the original stories have an Agatha Christie feel to them which I like and the post story discussions between Grant and Julia are fascinating as those are the sections I enjoy the most because they are revealing. Grant is intriguing as he’s elusive and evasive and Julia is sharply clever and persistent. I really like the concept of the novel and the solving of riddles, are the stories clues to something deeper, or are they a joke or a test? If so, who is testing who? As the end nears and the truth reveals itself (or does it?) it all comes together well. The ending is as enigmatic as Grant!

Overall, a really intriguing read and something a bit different.

With thanks to NetGalley and Penguin Michael Joseph for the ARC.

I wasn’t all that taken with this one, I ‘m afraid. The concept sounded intriguing, like a high level deconstruction of the classic mystery, but the reality didn’t live up to it. The short mysteries that are the core of the book are flat and repetitive. They all take place in the same kind of milieu with the same kind of cast, and the prose is workmanlike at best. The envelope story that surrounds them all isn’t a great deal better, with characters that never seem anything more than mouthpieces for the author to explain how clever he is. The climactic twist relies on reveals that have gone unseeded, which is frustrating (I’d love to think this was some kind of metatextual joke highlighting that all the rules that have been discussed at such length up to now are bunk, but…). In the end I found it a dull retread of Golden Age mysteries, lacking in spark or joie de vivre. From the blurb I was expecting something cleverer and more playful. A lot of people seem to have enjoyed it more than I did and good for them, but it just didn’t do it for me.

A clever way to present a series of short stories that are linked with a mystery murder, well written and even more well thought out. I would not normally read short stories but this collection tied together with a theme are really well done and the twisted end of the book makes it even more clever. Highly recommended.

This was a clever premise for a book - outline a whole host of permutations of what makes a good murder mystery, and then include short stories based on those permutations, with the relationship between a crime author and editor being the framework to hold it all together.

However initially I found the style all a bit prosaic particularly in the first half. I kept with it though and was pleased I did - the twists that come about in the second half made it far more pacy and interesting.

This is a very strange book, it's a story within a story within a story, you get the idea. It was very stilted and not particularly rivetting. The writing style, whether it is within the written story or in the real time dialogue, is so old fashioned and not well written at all. I'm afraid I got so far into this book and couldn't continue as it started to annoy me in its naivety.

An intriguing book that holds the readers attention until the last page, and then, everything you thought was true, is an enormous twist in the tale!! That is skilful, and devilish in all details.
Most of us, who love detective stories, want to beat the author, and guess the murderer before it is revealed. It’s only human nature, and I get great fascination from my endeavours, but this time, although I knew something was gently nagging at me, I was side stepped, led down a blind alley, in short, I didn’t guess the twist in this book.
Grant McAllister is the author of this book, which is intended to show that the detective novel has eight permutations, or rules, to make a successful story. Grant wrote this book 25 years ago, and Julia Hart, has come to see Grant, with a view to getting his book republished. Julia reads the stories aloud, each of these demonstrates one of the eight rules, I.e, There must be a group of suspects, a group of victims, a detective or group of detectives, there must be at least one killer, and so forth. As Julia reads each story aloud, and then discusses them with Grant, she finds subtle inconsistencies or ambiguities in each story, and she begins to wonder if these omissions are clues to a complex truth.
This book is set in The Golden Age of Crime Writing, the 1930’s, and throughout, there are subtle homages to Agatha Christie, J. Jefferson Farjeon, and other British Library Crime Classics. These are a genre of mystery fiction novels that I really love, you explore what you physically see and then draw your own conclusions. There are no iPads and mobile phones, and you always have to wait ages to contact the Police, and there is always the threat of violence implicit or implied towards the female sex, such old fashioned ideas, but they really exercise “ the little grey cells”. Murders seem to happen in beautiful settings, an old country house, a locked room, that no one can get into, family secrets, that are only gradually revealed, this is a wonderful evocative of this genre.
I rated this as five star read, and I thoroughly recommend this to while away a few happy hours of brain teasing mystery. I will leave reviews on Goodreads and others later.

It's 1930 and Megan and Henry are staying with Bunny at his house in Spain. It's unbearably hot and Bunny drank too much at lunch: he's going to have a rest and then he wants to talk to Megan and Henry about something serious. Only it never gets that far: when Bunny doesn't emerge after his siesta his guests find that he's been murdered. How can that have happened? There's no one else in the house, so one of them must be the killer.

Those are the bones of the first story which editor Julia Hart has read to the author of The White Murders, Grant McAllister. It's thirty years since the collection of short stories was first published by a professor of mathematics who wanted to explore The Permutations of Detective Fiction, and Hart's publisher, Blood Type Books (isn't that a wonderful name?) wants to republish the stories. Hart has gone to visit McAllister on the Mediterranean island where he's lived in seclusion for decades. She wants to check through the stories for any inconsistencies and find out something about the author for publicity purposes.

For each requirement of a mystery novel (such as the need for a victim, the optimum number of suspects, who can be the detective) there's a short story to illustrate the point. Over a few days, Hart reads these to McAllister and then they discuss any inaccuracies and probe the deeper meaning of the story. She can't resist pushing McAllister for personal information - and it obviously makes the author uneasy.

The stories are good. I did think that they were perhaps not top-of-the-range but there's a good reason for that which will become clear in due course. They're very much stories of their time - the mid-twentieth century - when the police were not quite so vigorously restricted as they are now. Don't ask me to use my fist on a child one officer tells his superior. There's an excellent variety in the stories too.

Hart's sensitive. When McAllister fails to eat some his mussels at dinner she ensures that she leaves some too. Her probing into the author's past, and into a murder which happened in 1940 and which seems to be foreshadowed and echoed in the stories, is subtle but demanding. You won't realise just how subtle Hart has been until you get to the final pages.

When talking about books the word original is dramatically overused, so it almost seems too tame to use it to describe Eight Detectives, but I can't think of a better description. I have never read anything quite like it. The characters are excellent, both in the short stories and in the over-arching narrative. That's a very considerable achievement as different skills are required in short stories and the long-form novel. The individual plots are clever too - you'll realise quite how clever when you finish the book.

Did I work out what had happened? I wasn't even close, but all the clues were there. It's a book to read for the sheer enjoyment of it - and then to read again to see how it was done. I'd like to thank the publishers for letting Bookbag have a review copy.

Thank you to Netgalley and Penguin Michael Joseph UK for the arc of Eight detectives by Alex Pavesi.

This follows a mathematician whom in which has a long-forgotten about book in which involve lots of short mysteries whom are then rediscovered by a publisher in the present day..... We end up learning and finding out that he has a mathematical theory which is about the structure of the mysteries he has written.... You also get a hint in which he may be actually dropping clues about a much larger motive in hand for writing these stories. In fact this is actually book within and written within a book, and within both stories you are given a bunch of theories and clues to figure out. Very similar to the Agatha Christie/Poirot type mysteries. All the stories come into one in a seriously larger mystery to solve. This was such a well written book, the structuring of this book is new for me but it was really interesting and very intelligent way of writing it makes you want to try and solve the mysteries...

If your into the Agatha Christie type of mysteries this is definitely one for you.....

Very unique, different and captivating...

5 Stars⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

This was a really enjoyable read! I loved the creative and clever structure of the book, and there were plenty of plot twists to keep me on the edge of my seat.

This is unlike anything I have ever read before.

Grant McAllister, an author and mathematician has found the mathematical equation for the perfect murder mystery. He has written a book of 7 short stories to prove the equation works. Julie, the editor from the publishers Blood Type, is interviewing Grant to get the background on the stories and a better understanding of the maths.

Each of the 7 mysteries are read out by Julie and then they both discuss the story. It is so strange to have 7 different stories, some very Christie-esque, within the one book but each one gives you a little clue to a bigger mystery.

It's a strange one and I think you really need to concentrate on it to pick up the subtle hints and clues. I am actually wondering if I should read it again to get a better understanding. It's definitely worth a read!

Thank you to Netgalley and Michael Joseph for the advanced copy!

Disappointing. It's a great idea but I found the bulk of the book tedious. If I had not read the description of the book to know that there was a twist in the end I would have given up. I think Pavesi was trying to be too clever. A series of short stories doesn't hold ones attention and the following discussion of each story by Julia becomes repetitive. I think, however, the book would actually work brilliantly as a TV serial.

What a phenomenal opener to a very unique book. I wasn’t quite sure what to expect from it, but it is a book that certainly blows your mind. I haven’t felt so fondly for a book since reading The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle but Eight Detectives is high up in that league. The concluding parts got me good, I didn’t know how it was all going to wrap up but I loved it.

This is an epic one of a kind book that everyone needs to read.

I love a book where the dialog is of two people which this book is. This is not a light read, it's a very complex read but it's really engaging and clever. It's a slow burn but it's a different take on mystery crime and there are lots of twists and turns that you will not see coming. It's a really good read but you need to concentrate to keep up. I would really recommend this for a different type of read from your usual read.

‘Eight Detectives’ is a detective novel about an author of detective novels. Grant McAllister, a mathematician, published a series of seven detective novels in the 1940s as part of his research into the mathematics of murder mysteries. Many decades later, Julia Hart – an acquisitions editor for Blood Type Books – seeks out Grant McAllister, now retired and living in seclusion on a remote island, as she wants to republish his books. However, as they talk through the stories together, discrepancies start to appear – and is Julia imagining the link between The White Murders and a real-life White murder that happened back in 1940?

The idea behind this is brilliant – detective stories within detective stories – and this started very strongly. The tales contained within this are Christie-esque and very hard to predict until the culprit is revealed at the end. I also enjoyed the dynamics between Julia and Grant – clever, sharp-eyed Julia picking out discrepancies and asking probing questions, Grant trying to avoid the questions and steer the discussion towards mathematics. Julia’s youthful inquisitiveness and energy contrasted well with Grant’s weariness and musings. After spending years living in anonymity and seclusion, Grant both welcomes the normality of human interaction and seems wary of what Julia could unleash.

The ending is what makes or breaks a murder mystery, and the ending of this didn’t pack quite the punch I wanted. The major twist was clever – I hadn’t predicted it – but in many ways it felt like cheating. This book was keen to reinforce the rules of murder mystery novels, going over the required components and mathematics – yet the major twist seemed to bend those rules. The final two chapters contained two more twists – one which I had predicted (I believe this was the author’s intention), and one which I had not. It speaks to the author’s ability that it was a complete trope of the genre and still took me by surprise.

In many ways, I think I preferred the constituent detective novels to the overarching plot. The idea of a story within a story is brilliant but very hard to carry off effectively – I can only think of a couple of successful examples. This came very close, and for some it will likely work well, but I wasn’t quite satisfied.

If you’re a fan of detective novels I’d recommend this – the idea of the mathematics and the story within a story is excellent, and the tales within are brilliant examples of short murder mysteries. As for the ending, I’ll leave you to make up your own minds.

I am conflicted about this book. It is original, clever and well written; unlike anything I have read before. Seven short stories bound together with a final one bringing the whole narrative together. Nearly all of the stories have alternate endings and it needs a devious mind to keep track of all the clues scattered about. Nothing is as it seems. It starts with Julia, an editor, travelling abroad to interview a reclusive author about his book of detective short stories written from a mathematical formula with a view to republishing after many years. By the end your brain is spinning with all the twists and turns. Sadly, I couldn’t personally connect with either of the main characters, but the book is well worth reading for its brilliance.

This is a very clever and unique murder mystery novel. It consists of several short stories, written years ago, and in between is a dialogue between the author, Grant, who now lives away from society, and a young woman, Julia, who wants to publish a new edition of them. Grant has also published a mathematical analysis of the murder mystery genre, which forms the basis of their discussions. There are some anomalies in the stories which she questions and they are possible clues to another, local, murder. To be honest I did not follow all of this and reading on a kindle with no chapter index, it is difficult to flip back to check a point. I thought it was like reading a series of Jonathan Creek mysteries. It was clever and there are a couple of twists at the end, but I felt it was an intellectual exercise and there was very little real emotion in it.

The Eighth Detective is not quite the "thrilling, wildly inventive nesting doll of a mystery" I was hoping it'd be promised to be. I approached this novel hoping for something in the realms of Anthony Horowitz. Sadly, The Eighth Detective seems closer to The 7½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle, in that both novels are hellbent on 'confusing' the reader with 'shocking' reveals. Similarly to Horowitz's Magpie Murders, The Eighth Detective introduces to a the work of fictions writer of detective fiction. In Alex Pavesi's novel the writer of a collection of short stories (all whodunnits) has relocated to an unmanned island. He's approached by an editor interested in re-publishing this collection. She decides for theatrical reasons to read his own stories to him, all of these stories build on a paper he wrote "examining the mathematical structure of murder mysteries" called 'The Permutations of Detective Fiction' (very a la Ronald Knox). The editor notices discrepancies in his stories (continuity errors, incongruous descriptions etc.).
The novel is ¾ made up by these short stories...and dare I say, or write, that they are at best mediocre? Most of them seems Agatha Christie rip-offs (the most ostentatious of which is acknowledged by the fictions author as a 'homage' to his favourite crime novel). Each short story is followed by sections titled 'Conversations' in which the editor grills the author about his stories. The author seems to have little recollection of the intentional discrepancies he peppered into his stories, but the editor is unyielding and tries to learn more about his private life (which made certain later reveals less 'shocking'). Each time she finishes reading a short story the final line appears twice (once at end of the short story and once at the beginning of the following 'Conversation'). This did not help in making the novel feel less repetitive.
The writing style doesn't seem to vary so that the short stories and the 'Conversations' seem to have been written by the same person (which they have, but it kind of ruins the illusion of the stories having been written by a character). The characters were mere names on a page, their personalities inexistent or irrelevant.
The Eighth Detective will offer little to readers who are fans of detective fiction and/or whodunnits. The short stories were populated by boorish caricatures, relied on predictable twists, and failed to amuse or surprise me.

When is a book of short stories actually really just the one story? Eight detectives is that book. It took me while to warm to this format or to see where it was going but I had to find out.

An interesting concept which made me curious when I realised it would feature all of McAllister’s detectives as part of the wider novel. However, I when I came to read them, I just wasn’t wowed by the short stories that were part of The White Murders, they seemed to be lacking some kind of spark for me which made for a very long set up. I found that they weren’t holding my attention enough either and in fact I was only really enjoying the chapters with the interactions with Julia and Grant. The novel only truly got under my skin near the end with the dramatic reveal. I didn’t find it as a rewarding reading experience as other reviewers did which was a shame.

I really wanted to love this one, especially as so many people have been raving about it. Sadly, I just didn’t get on with it. And I’m sure it’s a case of it’s me, not the book, most likely it was just not what I was looking for in a book right now. It’s a great premise, has interesting characters is well written, but it’s just not for me at the moment!