Eight Detectives is an excellent detective story to the power of eight. You know how, when you’re going on holiday, you just want a book that becomes part of your holiday experience? One that you look forward to enjoying while you’re on the plane, in your hotel room, or around the pool? You choose a book, with some trepidation, hoping it isn’t going to let you down.
Well, if you’re a fan of detective fiction and you yearn for a modern successor to Agatha Christie, then you won’t be disappointed by Alex Pavesi’s debut novel.
Also, if you’ve enjoyed Anthony Horowitz’s Magpie Murders and Moonflower Murders, you’ll probably like this too. There are some similarities. Julia Hart is a publishing executive who has tracked down a reclusive author and maths professor — Grant McAllister — with a view to publishing a book that he had written decades ago called The White Murders. That book contains seven short detective stories. As in the Horowitz books, we have both the narrative of Julia’s conversation with Grant, and the unfolding of the individual stories within Grant’s book, and those two narratives are connected.
As Julia reads out each of those stories, she questions Grant on a number of inconsistencies, and spots parallels with a real-life murder case. And so Julia herself becomes the eighth detective in the novel.
I loved it. Each of the stories are themselves brilliant, and they draw heavily and deliberately from the Christie canon and that of other classic crime books. They are clever homages, but still excellently written stories in their own right. My particular favourite was the reworking of And Then There Were None. I’ve previously reviewed the Christie original and it remains one of my favourite detective stories of all time.
Alex Pavesi has that most crucial gift as an author — an engaging and immersive writing style. I just wanted to keep on reading. He manages to provide plenty of descriptive passages without ever allowing the pace of the story to drag. Some episodes gave me goosebumps. I experienced the fear and trepidation of the characters as if I was right there alongside them.
It wouldn’t be a satisfying novel without plenty of twists and tricks, and they are delivered at just the right moments.
Usually, in the interests of balance, when I write a review I try to include some constructive criticism, but in this case I can’t really think of any. It won’t be to everyone’s taste, of course, but it was to mine. Well worth a read, particularly if you’re going on holiday. It’s five stars!
And since I love a mystery too, you might notice a bothersome bit of sticking plaster in the photos. What is the significance you might wonder? Does it make it all the way to cockpit? If you think you know the answer, or it’s keeping you awake at night and you want to know, (it’s nothing to do with Eight Detectives, but is related to a famous reporter/sleuth and one of my favourite and funny moments in one of his adventures, which also occurs on a plane) then you can always drop me an email (address is at the top of the Home page 
).
