I keep picking this book up in various bookshops, reading the blurb and thinking "ooh that sounds interesting, maybe I should add it to my TBR list" and then getting home and realising I've already read it. This has probably happened 3 or 4 times now, and has never happened to me before with any other book. I'm not quite sure why I can't remember that I've read this one. I did find it dull as I was reading it, and didn't particularly enjoy it. I didn't think the plot was as clever as I hoped, and I didn't actually enjoy the stories that much.

[Review] ⭐⭐
Eight Detectives is a very pedestrian novel and not as clever as readers are lead to believe. The two main characters, Grant and Julia, are dull and improbable. The additional characters in the short stories are powerless and fragile. In fact, there is a fragility to the whole story.

One of the short stories, within the story, is very obviously a retelling of "And Then There Were None" by Agatha Christie. The only reference made to Christie is a flippant word, "homage". One of the other stories also copies a Christie story. This makes me wonder how much of the book is lifted from the work of other writers. Once I saw there was no attribution, I couldn't stop wondering about this.

As to the conclusion, this was the most interesting part but it still floundered on regaining any credit. As I have said many times, I don't mind not working out all the little clues within a story, so long as they are actually there for me to have a chance. Eight Detectives leaves no clues at all for the reader and it left me underwhelmed.

Pavesi does not write a careful or rare story. The work lacks the finesse that flows so easily from the authors he seeks to emulate. What we have is a barely passable story that tries, and fails, to seduce readers into believing it will be a deep dive into the golden age of mystery stories. Eight Detectives has so much missed potential.

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Thanks to @netgalley Penguin UK and Michael Joseph for a free proof in return for an unbiased review.

A clever concept, several short stories all connected to a larger plot. It kept my interest and had some great twists.

Very clever! Eight short detective tales, a nice tidy concept book. A whole range of stories, and styles that subtly change from vignette to vignette with an intriguing ending that I for one did not see coming.
Good Fun.

Several books within a book. A unique tool in the crime fiction world is to have a book within a book, but Eight Detectives has several books within the book. For me this made it more difficult to follow. I enjoyed the current day storyline but couldn't get on with the "books". I think this is an issue with my reading "mojo" at the moment, which has been a little hit and miss during the pandemic. Not everything catches my attention easily and I'm afraid Eight Detectives fell to my pandemic reading fatigue issue. A brilliant idea, and the writing was lovely, I was just unable to connect with it at this time I'm afraid.

An absolutely brilliant and original thriller. I cannot praise this book enough. I am only giving 5 stars to exceptional books after reading this! It has been praised in many mediums and no wonder. Do not hesitate to read this!

Thank you to Netgalley for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

A clever and complex book, an ambitious and creative piece of work. A little bit slow to start, but once it got going it was excellent. A recommended read.

Eight Detectives was not what I expected at all and I don't mean this in a negative way. I went into this thinking it would feel like a true-crime novel, perhaps a crime thriller with police inspectors and plot twists. What we actually get is a very obviously fictional story. I'm not sure if this was just me experiencing it from a surface level perspective or if it really did feel like a story within a story within a story - meta, I know.

This book didn't necessarily shock me in any way, but it definitely kept me wanting more. I enjoyed reading the individual stories and finding out the discrepancies that I didn't notice while I was reading them. These were really subtle and clever - I'm a stickler for details, but even I didn't pick up on all of them. There were some stories that I had to go back and re-read to find them and see if they really did have those little incorrect details! The writing style itself is very atmospheric and I was drawn in by every single story. Every story has stuck with me, which is a testament to some amazing writing and characterisation. Occasionally, this got a little repetitive and I wasn't particularly interesting in learning about the statistical probabilities of certain narrative choices, but it was otherwise great.

I did admittedly see part of the ending coming, though I won't say which part so I don't spoil this for anybody. Regardless, I enjoyed reading it. I thoroughly enjoyed seeing how all the different stories came together and how everything linked - this was really clever. Be warned, however, that the ending definitely relies on memory so you have to pay close attention to the stories. Overall, this was a surprisingly interesting read considering I apparently went into it knowing nothing about it!

Trigger warnings: arson, asphyxiation, cancer, murder.

Thank you to Alex Pavesi, Michael Joseph and Netgalley for providing me with an e-copy in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions expressed are my own.

A enjoyable collections of short stories woven into a wider tale. The stories are varied and interesting and the can make guesses along the way at how they fit into the overarching story. I did find some of the re-tellings a little forced but on the whole enjoyed this book.

What a wonderful, genius story this was. The storyline is so clever and tightly plotted, unveiling various stories within one another. The characters were intriguing, and the way in which the book played out kept me well and truly hooked and fully invested to the end.
This book is something all murder mystery lovers should read!.

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A mystery wrapped in an enigma enclosed in a what the heck just happened???

Grant McAllister is a mathematician and crime writer. Years ago he sat down and worked out the rules of murder mysteries and wrote stories that fit within his rules. Three decades later there's interest in his book again. Julia Hart, a young ambitious editor arrives on his Mediterranean hideaway. Together they go over the stories...and it soon becomes apparent to Julia there's something not quite right about these stories. And something very off about the writer...

A very clever novel, that sometimes seems to make no sense. But in true mystery style it all comes together in the end. Lots of nods to the classic mystery writers and characters but still very modern in its telling.

There was much to enjoy here, but I found I couldn't connect with it. I'd read more from this author in the future though.

This is a fascinating combination of short story and novel. An editor is meeting with an author to go through his long out-of-print collection of short murder mystery stories with a view to reprinting them. But as they go through them she notices discrepancies in each story which together hint at a real-life crime. It's one of those books where you can't trust anything you read but it's really compelling because of that. You also read the seven short stories in the collection and can try to work out what's wrong yourself. This is an innovative and really quite brilliant book.

Julia is a young editor and travels to a remote mediterranean island to interview crime author Grant McAllister who believes that all murder mysteries follow a mathematical equation.

To explain his theories, they review eight short stories in turn and in each, Julia notices a pattern of hints that refer to a real murder that happened more than 30 years ago that remains unsolved. McAllister plays dumb and makes out he has no knowledge of that murder or the suggestions in his stories.

As they reach their conclusion and the truth is revealed, Julia must decide on how she is going to deal with the information.

Quite an interesting read and the explanations of the mathematical equation makes good sense for how murder mysteries are written.

Thank you for providing me with a review copy of this book. Enjoyed reading, nice twist at the end, would recommend....

An admirable, interesting concept and unique premise but too clever/convoluted for me. Struggled to hold my interest.

I received an advanced reading copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. Thank you to NetGalley, Penguin UK, and the author Alex Pavesi.
I really enjoyed this! The premise is a mathematician who has figured out the essential formula for every murder mystery, and the format is eight short stories that cover each of these permutations, interspersed with an update from the 'present', as a young editor interviews the now aged author.
The different stories were each very involving and satisfactorily concluded, and the 'present day' twist at the end was an additional benefit. A great thriller, and a genuinely original format, would recommend!

I have mixed feelings about this book. When I first read the blurb, I loved the concept of the story and the idea of a mystery within a mystery.

The shifting of narrative, from a short mystery murder written in the past, to a journalist interviewing the author in the present, was fun and I enjoyed seeing how different murder mysteries could be written. However, I didn't find the differing narratives particularly distinct, so would keep reading, not realising for a while that it had switched to the other perspective.

Although the book started fast-paced, it did seem to slow and, disappointingly, it started to feel like a chore to trudge through the second half of the short murder mysteries in order to get to the ending of the present day.

There were a few twists in the book, which my customers will enjoy. However, I felt that the main twist was completely obvious from the blurb, which obliterated the shock factor/surprise completely.

Nevertheless, I always enjoy reading books where authors try new writing structures out, so I would recommend people give this a go. I'll definitely be getting several copies in for my crime-loving customers.

Gosh, i really wanted to love this book as I love this type of mysteries, but i really struggled with how disjointed it felt. The writing style didn't really do it for me either, it felt... unpolished whilst trying to be clever. I did not manage to feel connected to any of the characters, especially struggled with the short stories as they left me unsatisfied and not enough substance in between to link it seamlessly.

What an original and unique crime story, a real breath of fresh air, interesting, mysterious and exciting,