"The White Murders" was a series of short stories in a privately published book by Grant McAllister in the 1940s., based on mathematical theories of detective fiction devised during the Golden Age of detectives. Years later, an editor is preparing a new edition of the book and comes to talk to Grant about them all. Each story fits in the mathematical theory, but with deliberate twists and inconsistencies. Interspersed with the stories are conversations between author and editor about how the theory fits the stories, and questions about the White Murder in 1940, a still unexplained killing of a young woman in London.

I really enjoyed the concept of this, it's very clever. Some of the short stories are a little unpleasant, but the thread between them all, and Julia's questions about Grant ties it all together, and there is supposed to be a slightly subversive twist to them. I did see part of the twist coming as it's a not uncommon one in classic detective fiction, but there were more elements to it than I realised and it's very cleverly foreshadowed throughout the book. I liked the structure of it as well. Overall, really interesting!

A fascinating clever crime novel.
Julia Hart travels to a remote island to meet mathematician Professor Grant McAllister who had written a paper in the 1930’s about the permutations you can have in a crime novel which considered the number of killers, victims and detectives that you could have in a crime novel. To illustrate his theory he wrote a book ‘The White Murders’ which had seven short crime stories. At the time there was little interest so the book was not published; however, many years later a publisher discovers the book and wants to publish it and so sends Julia to meet the author and edit the book. Julia reads through each of the seven short stories with Grant and then afterwards highlights the discrepancies that she’s found in the stories. As a reader I found myself analysing each story looking for the discrepancies that Julia would highlight in the following chapter whilst wondering where the novel was heading - what was Grant hiding?
Loved this novel - very original.

The Eighth Detective is a clever and quirky novel, just when you think you know what’s going on up pops another twist. I found this book to be entertaining and kept me intrigued throughout. I would rate this book 3.5 stars. Thank you to NetGalley, Penguin UK Michael Joseph and the author for the chance to review.

Really interesting premise, very well written. We've got stories spliced within stories, weaving an intriguing mystery together in a very clever fashion. One that you'll definitely struggle to put down.

I really enjoyed this book for about 75%.

Unfortunately, I felt that it was drawn out a little too much and that the actual ending didn't live up to all of the hype.

Eight Detectives is a clever and engaging read which threads numerous stories together seamlessly, keeping the pace and the tension sustained and evident so the reader keeps turning the pages,

I would have never have thought eight mysteries could be all involved in one to read. Although it took me a while to get into the novel and stories, o thought it was a good read,

Every so often a book comes along that takes your breath away. Eight Detectives is surely in that category. I cannot find the right words to recommend this book to anyone who is into murder/mystery novels. Absolutely superb.
This really ought to be made into a film or at least a TV series.
However, if you like a book where you get involved with characters and like lots of descriptive sections then this book is one to miss. You really, really need to concentrate almost 100% of the time. Even then I had great difficultly working things out. Not wanting to give too much a way but this must be a fairly unique book in that the 7 short and 1 main stories (eight detectives!!) have alternative outcomes.
Homage is paid to Agatha Christie and I could see at least 3 books/characters used in the stories.
Only very very minor comment and it may be me but given the 7 stories are from 1940 the author of Eight Detectives always calls both actors and actresses - actors. Possible I guess but seems hard to believe from 80 years ago.
Last and not Least - the twist at the very end is so, so clever and provides a fully satisfied reader.
Wonderful stuff

This is a very clever novel that sets out to tell us about a crime writer of the past with his collection of mathematically tested murder mystery plots and a young woman editor who on meeting him unravels a parallel tale of murder and much mystery herself.
I liked the way the stories wove with the interviews between Julia Hart and Grant McAllister and did have my suspicions that all was not well from the start but the author has achieved some excellent stories set very much in the golden age of crime mould to evoke classic Agatha Christie etc red herrings and a load of clever clues.
May not appeal to all wanting to just read through straight but this gave time for thought and our own detective skills to unravel the tale (s) very much Cluedo like within a book!

Grant is a famous novelist and Julia is a book editor who is working with him to republish an old set of short stories. As you read each, They discuss the necessary components for a murder mystery. Also, Julia notices each time something that is wrong in the story. Each ‘mistake’ links to a real unsolved mystery. What does this mean and what is wrong? This book was very clever and I think I would have liked it more if I was a greater lover of short stories. If you are, this would be ideal as it combines 8 short stories with an overarching mystery.

Alex Pavesi writes a fascinating, smart and imaginative novel that examines and analyses the murder mystery genre with author and Mathematics Professor Grant McAllister, with its echoes of Agatha Christie. Now an elderly recluse living on a Mediterranean island, many years ago he wrote a collection of seven murder mysteries under the title, The White Murders. In a research paper in 1937, The Permutations of Detective Fiction, he theorises that there are rules for murder mysteries, calculating the possibilities and the different structures, that he illustrates with the short mysteries in his collection. A publisher discovers the mysteries and wants to republish them that leads to young, ambitious editor, Julia Hart, turning up at McAllister's home.

Hart wants to go through each of the mysteries with McAllister, being sharp and observant, she notes the inconsistencies in each story, leaving her curious, with many questions and wondering if something bigger lies within the stories. She becomes the eighth detective, persistent and determined as she discusses each mystery after reading it with McAllister, who claims to have a poor memory and insists that there is no connection between the stories. Hart, however, is having none of this and wants to know more, intrigued with McAllister himself, who is he and what is his personal history? Why do the mysteries go under the title of The White Murders?

Pavesi's approach in his brilliant novel is different and original, offering the reader the opportunity to turn detective and hunt for the conundrums, riddles and clues that are present and underlie the unexpected and surprising ending(s). The clues are all there, in the well plotted and structured storytelling, the book within a book, that engaged me so thoroughly. This is a highly entertaining, twisted and intriguing thriller, that will appeal to many readers of crime fiction, especially those who love their classic golden age of crime mysteries. Many thanks to Penguin Michael Joseph for an ARC.

From the outset of Eight Detectives the writer is toying with the readership, we are dropped into a world of murder mystery. A young editor visits an unnamed Mediterranean island where a long forgotten academic/author lives, her firm wants to publish a collection of murder mysteries (The White Murders) written 30 years ago. The narrative flips between the present and then one of the eight stories wondering if there is more to this arrangement than meets the eye. Its a collection of short stories built into a novel.. When reading you will notice some very obvious nods to the master of crime fiction Agatha Christie, the format a couple of the stories are a take on some very famous Christie novels, it's a bit disconcerting, you find yourself looking for other links to Agatha hidden in the novel.

It's a really easy, entertaining read, I sat down and read it in one sitting. My only however, was that I think it fell off right at the end, but thats a minor quibble. Fans of the Golden Age will love this.

This is an unusual book, definitely one for fans of the detective novel. The framing narrative is of a young woman interviewing an elderly detective story writer and reading aloud the eight short mysteries he wrote some time ago. In between they discuss the necessary components of a detective murder mystery and their mathematical ratios.
Fascinating.

There are rules for murder mysteries. There must be a victim. A suspect. A detective. The rest is just shuffling the sequence. Grant McAllister, an author of crime fiction and professor of mathematics, once sat down and worked them all out over 30 years ago. Now a publishing house wants to republish them all, and send Julia Hart out to interview Grant and prepare the stories for publication. But as she reads the stories, Julia is unsettled to realise that there are parts that don't make sense. Intricate clues that seem to reference a real murder. One that's remained unsolved for thirty years . . .

I was intrigued by the premise of Alex Pavesi's Eight Detectives - how can a mathematician have reduced detective stories to simply a formula?! I have heard of detective novels described as 'formulaic' before but no-one had actually ever provided the specific formula.

I really enjoyed this novel, which has been described as a 'nesting doll' type of story, and makes the reader quite dizzy at times. Are you reading the novel? Or a short story within a novel? And how are the short stories linked? And just when the reader thinks they have puzzled that bit out, it becomes apparent that the storyline is even more complex and there is puzzle within the enigma?! Reading 'Eight Detectives' reminded me of Italo Calvino's 'If on a Winter's Night a Traveller', which takes a similarly complex approach to setting stories within stories.

I really don't want to write much more, as coming to this novel with few preconceptions and knowledge of the plot will make the reading experience more enjoyable. I plan to read it again so I can see how it was done!

My thanks to NetGalley and publisher Penguin UK - Michael Joseph, for the ARC.

What a fabulously engrossing read! Don't be put off by the first chapter; in all honesty, reading this I thought I was witnessing an extremely poor piece of local Am-Dram production. However, things start to fall into place when you understand the setting regarding the telling of that mystery. The format is cleverly executed and well-written - such a unique perspective on murder/mysteries.

Julia Hart is a budding editor for a publishing company, sent to an isolated Mediterranean island where reclusive crime novelist and Professor of Mathematics, Grant McAllister, has lived for 25 years. Thirty years previously he had used his mathematical prowess to write a collection of seven short murder/mysteries - The White Murders - each exemplifying mathematical ratios of suspects, detectives and victims. Although published privately, Julia has a copy and her employers want to re-publish.

Julia reads each story aloud to Grant, following with a critical conversation where she highlights the inconsistencies she finds and asks him to explain his thinking; all the while questioning why he had entitled the book as he did, because there was still an unsolved case called The White Murder from 30 years ago.

This book just gets more and more interesting as it moves along - OK, so some of the mathematical ratios went well over my head, but that can be quite easily ignored. The main thing is - is Julia Hart and Grant McAllister really who they appear to be? They both have secrets.

From an amateur dramatical start, the stories become increasingly complex and very dark. Are Julia's questions really being answered?

A "novel" way of writing, which I really enjoyed.

I recieved a digital edition of the book from the publisher Penguin UK - Michael Joseph, via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions expressed in this review are mine and mine alone, please respect this and be aware of spoilers.

So to start of I found it very hard to get into and quite confusing for the first couple of chapters. I think this is mosrly due to the formatring of the arc (obviously its not a finished copy so its a common problem) but the jump between stories and 'real life' didn't really come across well, they tended to blend until i knew to specifically look for the jumps.

I found the short murder mystery shories a little strange and rather unnecessary... After 3 of them i skipped the short stories to get back to the main 'real' plot... So in essence i skipped a large portion of the book... I'm not really sure if it really affected my reading because I'm not a huge murder mystery fan... But with Julia and Grant rehashing the stories afterwards i don't think I missed much at all - I understood the relevance of the stories in relation to the 'real life' plot happening. Don't get me wrong I enjoyed the stories on their own I just find them unnecessary as part of this story, it seems like a way to forward the plot without doing anything... Since you can skip them and miss nothing.

I found the ending was quite lacking, with Julia just disappearing and jumping back to how she found out about the book to Francis at the end. It seemed like a forgone conclusion that Grant had killed Elizabeth White from the synopsis, but it had little to do with the actual plot...

Franics seems like a freeloader, he only seems wants the money since he has none and clearly lives above his money. And Julia acts like a bitch, i understand why she's angry and upset and i did sympathise with her, but i found her general attitude to be very pushy and annoying.

Safe to say I wasn't a fan but I'd definitely give it another go once its full formatted because it makes huge difference in reading experience.

As a lover of the queen of crime, the thought os this book excited me, supposedly with some interesting plots lines and christiesque flavour.
This book I think will be a bit of a marmite book, you either do not like it and think it overly saturated with plot or you really enjoy the ingenuity of the planning.

It starts straight into the story,where we find the charecters in the Mediterranean, Grant McAllister a crime novelist and mathmatician has seculded himself from the world, but Julia Hart a snappy editor wants to republish his early work form many years ago, but as she reads, things just do not add up.

The book is a contradiction on it's self, as it is a fast, yet slow paced book, one that weedles itself into your conciousness, and does not put you down, until the very end.
Having said that, it does make you work for your entertainment, makes you seek out clues, but you must not jump to conclusions, as it does have a habit of being twisty and turning, like a twisty turny thing, I did find it engaging.
This is not a single narrative, but a tale of several stories, it is intelligent and imaginative in the set up.
As mentioned earlier, this book will not be for everyone, you will love the ingeniouness of it all or think it pretentious and say, it was not well done.
I am of the former.

I did read this book in chunks, with rather large gaps between each sitting, hence, i did find it a little taxing on my poor brain to pick up the pieces from the previous read and continue.
It was a sign to me , that i was enjoying it and wanted to reach the conclusion , otherwise, i would have just closed it and moved onto my next book, so it does have engagement.
I won't lie and say that it was not confusing at times ( gor want of a better word) but if you stick thorugh it all you are rewarded with an ending to be proud of!

Thank you to Netgalley and the Publishers for giving me the opportunity to read this proir to publication and I have indeed orderd a hard copy for my collection.

Description 🔖

Grant McAllister is a mathematician with a passion for murder mystery stories. He combined the two to create the mathematical rules for every murder mystery. All of them require a victim, a suspect and a detective; how many of each and the roles in which they play in each story can be configured, but they are the basic requirements. Grant chose to prove his theory by writing seven short stories following his own guidelines.

In his old age, Grant has retired to a remote island but is contacted by editor Julia Hart who would like to work with him to publish his short stories. To do so, Julia visits Grant so that they can go through his old work, his theory and understand both. This unearths more questions than answers and Julia finds herself as the detective in a real life mystery.

General Thoughts 🤔

I was hooked on this book as soon as I started. I had no idea what was going on and why each chapter seemed to be so random. I can’t remember at which point I realised what was going on, but the penny dropped eventually. The fact that the book forced me to really pay attention and concentrate made me love it.

Given Julia’s quizzing of Grant after reading each story, I knew that some kind of secret was going to be revealed at some point, otherwise it’s just a book of short stories right? What I didn’t foresee was what that secret was going to be and it was the secret that just kept on giving.

Characters 👫👭👬

This is an interesting section for me to write about for this book as there are only really two “real” characters; Julia and Grant. As a reader we don’t get to know an awful lot about them but I didn’t find that necessary.

I didn’t know what to make of Grant from the start. I couldn’t work out if he was genuinely just old or purposely blasé about his personal life.

I honestly didn’t think much of Julia until towards the end of the book. She always seemed like she was a character included to help the telling of Grant’s story. I didn’t expect her to be quite so wrapped up in her own investigation as she was.

Writing Style ✍🏽

I don’t think I’ve ever read a book structured in this way before and that was partly what made me love it as much as I did. I was immersed into each short story like I was reading a full murder mystery book. Having the opportunity to then analyse and breakdown each short story with Julia and Grant was awesome.

The inconsistencies in the murder mystery stories were such a fantastic part of this book. After the first set of inconsistencies were mentioned, I was doing my own detective work trying to spot them in the subsequent stories. I found myself re-reading the short stories before reading the Grant and Julia chapters to see if I could spot them myself.

Conclusion & Scoring 🎖

This is unlike any other mystery book I’ve ever read and I think it’s such a special piece of work from Alex Pavesi. It was everything that I love about murder mystery stories amplified by 10. It was more than just a classic whodunnit, it was seven of them with one big overarching mystery to trump them all. If you haven’t already read this, READ IT.

Eight murder mysteries neatly packed up into one delightful read (or is that 17 mysteries?!). With (many) hints of Christie, this book had me hooked. Very clever written, it had me guessing right to the end. And it turns out that nothing is as it seems. Loved it!

I was intrigued by the premise of this book, and it certainly was not a disappointment. Hugely inventive, and a cracking read. A young editor travels to a Mediterranean island to interview a reclusive crime writer to put together a collection of my mystery short stories, linked with a mathematical theory about how mysteries are written. The stories themselves make up a large proportion of the book. Inspired by Agatha Christie, the stories are excellent, and the interviews between the editor and author are intriguing and absorbing, I absolutely loved this book.