The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton

This is an incredibly complex, well written, innovative book which is immensely impressive as it is a debut novel.  Turton set out to create a new type of Agatha Christie-esque novel and I believe he has achieved it.  In classic Christie style there is a death at a party which is taking place in a manor house set within expansive grounds.  And there is a whole cast of crumbling aristocrats, disreputable dandies and disgruntled relations in attendance.  The central protagonist must work out the backstories and motivations of each of the party guests, without arousing suspicion.

But that’s not all, far from it.  There are additional mysterious characters lurking about, plenty of secrets, a previous “tragic event” that no-one wants to talk about and our hero has his own issues - questioning his own identity and past whilst dealing with a very peculiar set of circumstances.  This is not simply a murder mystery, it is a hybrid cross-genre novel which plays around with time, characters and notions of self.  There is so much more to this book, so many surprising and imaginative twists and unusual elements, but I am really reluctant to say more as I don’t want to ruin it for you.

The story is wholly told from the central character’s point of view, we are restricted to what he sees and hears and we have access to his thoughts and workings out.  We are plunged right into the action from the start and I was hooked straight away.  This is not a short book, at over 500 pages it can feel intimidating, but I read it in a matter of days.  The intriguing plot, the twists and turns and the fantastically unpleasant characters keep your attention.  You have to keep reading to find out the answer to the mystery.

I loved the added touches at the start of the book, such as the floor plan of the house and map of the grounds to assist the reader in understanding the action and visualising the scene.  Also the copy of the party invitation which acts like a cast list for the drama.

Whilst this book is not perfect, it has its flaws and could be criticised for trying to be too clever and include too many twists, I would still recommend it and am looking forward to Turton’s next book.

**SPOILER ALERT**

This is no ordinary manor house.  It is stuck in the past, trapped in a time loop, acting as a prison!  This is a time-travelling, body swapping murder mystery and our narrator, Aiden, has a time limit for solving it.  But who can he trust?  And what should his focus be?  Working out who the murderer is?  Preventing the murder from happening?  Escaping?  Saving Anna?  Unmasking the Plague Doctor?  Figuring out who is pulling the strings and why?

With each new day Aiden awakes in a new body, within one of the party guests.  But it turns out this is not a new day, but the same day all over again, which he now views from a different perspective.  I found this really clever and interesting, reading about the same events, but with a different nuance and therefore discovering new things or revising previous assumptions.  This is an ingenious way of ensuring twists and planting new clues as well as developing characters and moving the story along whilst also recounting it many times over.  I also enjoyed the multiple “hosts” and the way that Aiden was influenced by their personalities, both their strengths and weaknesses, which sometimes threatened to overtake him.

Having said all this, whilst I loved 98% of this book, I absolutely hated the ending!!  I was positively spitting mad whilst reading the “big reveal”.