Book review: Eight Detectives by Alex Pavesi

Many years earlier, maths professor Grant McAllister published a research paper, The Permutations of Detective Fiction, which sought to give a mathematical definition of a murder mystery. It also served as the appendix to a book written by McAllister whereby his theories were distilled into seven short stories, self-published as a collection, which provide examples of the various permutations of suspects, detective and victim. 

Eight Detectives comprises those stories interspersed with conversations between Grant and Julia Hart, an editor interested in republishing the book, who has visited Grant on the Mediterranean island where he now lives in seclusion. Together, they go through the stories one by one, revealing in the process curious discrepancies which seem to refer to a “real-life” unsolved murder. Even the title of the book, The White Murders, references the case - the death of Elizabeth White - though Grant denies any knowledge.

I enjoyed reading the short stories, although some were a bit overly unpleasant at times. My favourite, like Julia’s, was Trouble on Blue Pearl Island, a faithful homage to Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None. (It’s notable that Christie’s works contain various examples of McAllister’s permutations - the murder where all the suspects did it, the detective as murderer, etc.) The eventual truth about Grant is very Christie-esque. 

I’ll admit, I was a bit relieved that the research paper referred to wasn’t appended here as well. I’m not sure I could have got through that.

I’d never have picked up on the discrepancies which Julia spots - I’m just not that careful a reader. Hats off to anyone who did.

While I enjoyed the stories, I liked the last part of the book best, where we learn more about what has really been going on, and the rug was pulled from under the reader more than once.

There’ve been a few examples lately of the detective story within a story format (Anthony Horowitz’s Magpie Murders and Moonflower Murders spring to mind) and it makes for an intriguing and juicy framework (and fun to write, I imagine). Eight Detectives is very cleverly constructed and the short story framework worked well in avoiding taking the reader too far out of the overarching narrative. I enjoyed it a lot.