I love puzzles and a locked room mystery so this was a exciting read for me. It different timelines was very interesting and made it more exciting for me.

Abigail and Benjamin always have a New Year's Eve murder mystery party combined with a birthday party for him. Thye hire out an Airbnb and several of their friends come. This year there is a new person, Barbara, who works with Benjamin..
It's all fun and games until Benjamin fails to wake up in the morning. At this point the story splits into two timelines. The one that you assume is real-time where a grieving Abigail has to continue her life whilst grieving her brother's suicide and one that appears to be in the 1930s with a Detective called Auguste Bell who turns up to find out who murdered Benjamin. The story switches between the two eras and in some cases rewrites itself, so can be a bit confusing in parts.
A nice little read.

Fair Play is a book about the unexpected and unexplained death of Benjamin in an Irish country mansion on the night of his New Year's birthday party organised by his sister Abigail. Abigail has themed the birthday party as a 1920's murder mystery party and as tragedy strikes, reality and fiction start to collide as Abigail uses the tropes of Golden Age detective fiction to work through her brother's death.

I liked what the author was trying to do here plating with the rules, but I think I would have enjoyed a plain Golden Age detective story better.

Abigail and her brother Benjamin have always been close and especially so since the loss of both their parents . To celebrate his birthday, which falls on New Year’s Day, Abigail hires a grand old house and gathers their friends together for a murder mystery party, which has become one of their traditions. As the night goes on, they drink too much champagne and play games. But in the morning as everyone gathers for breakfast, they realise Benjamin is dead.

The story then changes into what seems to be a locked room murder mystery, as Abigail is convinced that the local police and the doctor, who say this was a suicide, are wrong and she hires a detective to solve the case. We follow the detective’s reasoning (reads very much like an Agatha Christie in those parts) as he tries to find the murderer. The story is then further interspersed with present day descriptions of Abigail’s life, following her brother’s death, as she grieves for Benjamin and tries to work out how to go on and live without him.

In all honesty, the book was not what I expected and I was a little confused when I finished it but (I think I am right in this) on reflection I have realised that it is an exploration of grief, especially following such a harrowing death as death by suicide. Abigail revisits the day of, the days and weeks before Benjamin’s death to try and make sense of it but this is done in a quirky way of presenting this exploration as a locked room murder mystery. I did enjoy it each section in its own right and it was a quick and easy read and due to the slight confusion it caused me, it has certainly made me think!

would like to thank netgalley and the publisher for letting me read this book

a parody of an hercule preriot book and i am not sure about it at all.....

a murder mystery on new years day, brother and sister hold their annual party only the brother doesnt wake up the morning of new years day.... hes been murdered and the murderer is someone that is in the house ... a friend or a relative

its an easy read though whether you agree with the author on who the murderer is depends on whether your own deductive skills think otherwise....

its definitely in the weird category

This was a fun read but really just okay. It felt as though we didn't get very clearly defined characters or a real sense of the relationships between characters. Had the characters arrived to the house gradually at the beginning it would have made the ensuing plot much more compelling as I wouldn't have spent anywhere near the concerning amount of time I did going 'who is that again?' every time a name was dropped. I also wasn't a fan of the present (?) tense narration. It felt like a lot of the things that could've been really interesting had they been done intentionally were just accidents of the author, which was a pity.

What an intriguing book. I loved the way it plays with genre and form to explore grief and loss and the final section was an incredibly moving portrait to round everything off. (Spoilers) It starts out as a gentle and straightforward account of a group of friends and family getting together for a murder mystery weekend to celebrate a birthday. Then when the birthday boy Benjamin is found dead in his room it becomes slightly surreal and turns into a pastiche of a country house murder mystery, interspersed with real quotes about the rules of writing in the Golden Age of Detective Fiction. Gradually, as more realistic scenes from the life of Benjamin's sister Abigail appear, you realise that the detective elements are her attempts to impose order and meaning on the apparently senseless loss of her brother. Incredibly clever, it had a whiff of Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine About It. I enjoyed it but I wonder if it will fall slightly between two stools - the pastiche element reading a bit too cosy crime for literary fiction readers and the literary/psychological aspect being a bit confusing for people who love cosy crime. I hope not because it's a really clever and very affecting book. I'd give it a 3.5 but rounded it up to 4. Will review online later this week when it has launched.

A group of friend gather at an Airbnb on New Year's Eve. It's Benjamin's birthday, and his sister Abigail is throwing him a jazz-age murder mystery themed party. As the night plays out, champagne is drunk, hor d'oeuvres consumed, and relationships forged, consolidated or frayed. Someone kisses the wrong person; someone else's heart is broken. In the morning all of them wake-up - except Benjamin. As Abigail attempts to wrap her mind around her brother's death, an eminent detective arrives determined to find Benjamin's killer. In this mansion, suddenly complete with a butler, gardener, and housekeeper, everyone is a suspect, and nothing is quite as it seems.

This well-written murder mystery party was supposed to celebrate Abigail's brother's birthday on New Year's Eve. But by New Year's day, Benjamin is dead. Abigail struggles to cope with her brother's death. The story is told in three parts.

The characters are misleading, we get an eccentric detective and their partner, and a locked-room mystery that will hold your attention throughout.

Published 3rd April 2025

I would like to thank #NetGalley #PanMcmillan #Picador and the aithor #LouiseHegerty for my ARC of#FairPlay in exchange for an honest review/

With thanks to Netgalley, Pan Macmillan and Picador for the free copy in exchange for an honest review.

Like a lot of reviewers, it seems, I'm not entirely sure what to make of this. It starts off as a fun romp featuring a group of friends, with all the intrigues and dynamics that brings, before spinning off into a meta-textual murder mystery and a meditation on grief - possibly both simultaneously.

I *think* I liked it a lot. It's a brisk, entertaining read, but there's also a lot more behind it. Whether I'm fully getting everything behind it, I'm not entirely sure - and there's a part of me that's not always convinced that there's as much there to get as the book thinks there is. But I'm inclined to come down on the positive side and give this the benefit of the doubt.

I think this would be an excellent choice for book groups. There's lots to discuss, from dissecting whodunnit, to exploring the intertextuality of the locked-room mystery and the archetypes (implicitly and explicitly) drawn upon, to debating really what the book is trying to say.

I was invited to read Fair Play via Netgalley and I jumped at the chance. I love a puzzle in a novel, and this one promised that and more. Unfortunately, Fair Play didn’t quite work out for me, although it does some things very well.

The novel starts with Abigail hiring an Airbnb to host a New Year’s birthday bash for her brother, Benjamin, with a few close friends invited. There’s a tradition of running a murder mystery party which Abigail devises and which gets very competitive in the group. The next morning, they awaken to find Benjamin’s bedroom door locked. With growing concern, they break the door down to find Benjamin dead in his bed. It’s an explosive start which gives the reader an introduction to the characters, and we quickly find out who gets along (and who doesn’t!) as well as those with more amorous connections, either past, present, or desired.

We see the aftermath of that shocking discovery as Benjamin’s sister and friends try to reconcile themselves with his death. This is particularly difficult for Abigail who struggles to return to work after a period of bereavement and who finds it understandably hard to adjust. Hegarty illustrates Abigail’s grief very well. We see the vultures desperate for gossip, particularly given the unusual circumstances, and those who use Abigail’s experiences as an opportunity to talk about their own. There are also those who don’t know what to say, and so try to ignore it or who expect Abigail to just move on and to be the same person that she was before. Abigail’s reactions to all this are largely realistic, and we see her good days and bad days, as well as the inner turmoil as she tries to do what needs doing. It does descend into farce at one point, but for the most part is well done.

There is also a second narrative running in parallel to the aftermath of the party which takes the form of a golden age mystery led by detective Auguste Bell. The focus of this story within a story is the same – what happened to Benjamin and why – but casts all of the characters in a slightly different light. It’s a little puzzling at first, but I liked the tongue-in-cheek style of the narration, particularly as Bell breaks the fourth wall at times. The raison d’être of this second narrative isn’t immediately revealed, but I thought it was both clever and original when its purpose became clear.

So far, so good. Unfortunately, there were a few things that really irked me about this novel. Firstly, I felt patronised as a reader. The author includes some of the traditional rules of fair play in detective stories from the likes of T. S. Eliot and S. S. Van Dine. These are presented as a list, and a few pages later the author adds “I would like to ask the reader to turn back a few pages and read through the Fair Play Rules which you probably skipped earlier". Excuse me?! I read each and every one of those rules as they were presented, and enjoyed picking out the ones that I expect Christie took great joy in ignoring. Who are you to presume otherwise? I am still irked by this, in case that’s not apparent.

To make things worse, the detective’s sidekick is described in those rules of fair play: “his intelligence must be slightly, but very slightly, below that of the average reader”. I believe that Hegarty has grossly underestimated a reader’s intelligence, as Bell's sidekick is, for want of a better term, an idiot. To claim that this individual is only ever so slightly below that of the average reader is, I think, insulting. Finally, I think that if you’re going to incorporate the rules of fair play into your novel that the reader should at least be able to expect you to abide by them.

So, a great premise and an interesting take, but it just didn’t work out for me, and it’s not one that I can honestly recommend, although some readers will enjoy it.

Louise Hegarty's debut novel Fair Play is an inventive new take on the familiar - if somewhat tired - locked-room murder mystery. Abigail gathers her and her brother Benjamin's friends together at an Airbnb for his birthday murder mystery party and, in the morning, Benjamin is dead. At this point, the narrative splits in two halves: the fall-out of events and conversations between Abigail and the characters; and the arrival of an infamous detective named Mr Bell, whose metafictional references to both the novel structure itself and literary tropes of murder mysteries are somewhat interruptive. This is an enjoyable book that presents classic tropes from a different angle, in a way that gets you thinking.

I’m confused what was this supposed to be about. Couldn’t get into this, didn’t like the writing style and sadly this really was not for me. I did not finished hence the 2 stars!

I am not sure if I've really missed something here or whether this book is just designed to be kooky to the point of bizarre but it wasn't for me. The first part of the party started ok, I thought it was going to become a thriller or a murder mystery but it definitely became something else.

At first I wasn't sure what I had just finished reading, I needed time to digest it.

The book opens with Abigail preparing an Air BNB for the yearly NY party/her Brother's birthday. So far so good. The guests begin to arrive, rather a lot to keep track of for me.

The next day is Benjamin's (her brother) birthday. But he never wakes up to celebrate. He is found in a locked bedroom. A fictional detective and his sidekick turn up to investigate and it appears the house the guests are in, is not a Air BNB, but a grand house that Abigail and her brother own. They even have their own servants. It would seem we are also transported back to the 1930s judging by the dialogue. Strange I thought, reading on and deciding to stick with it.

I actually enjoyed the fictional detective and his powers of deduction ala Monsieur Poirot. The plot became a little like the "Sliding Doors" film. It got a tedious when there was a lot of repeated dialogue, which I scan read. Maybe italics might have been good at this point to distinguish the prose just read.

Then came the ending. Which at first floored me, I had no idea what had happened. Mulling it over for some time after finishing I think I can reconcile what Abigail was doing and the reason for the ending, but that would be a spoiler.

Most important to mention is that this is not an Agatha Christie clone, or a mystery per se. The trope is used to convey much more than that, so you may be disappointed, or confused if you are expecting it to be purely a murder mystery.

The more I mull, the more I realise how clever the writing is, but it won't be for everyone

Initially, this reads as a love letter to old school crime novels, however it soon becomes clear that there is a deeper message at hand.

Set in two parallels, one being 'real' and the other being a locked-room murder mystery. (I would say that I would have liked a little bit more of the 'real') The murder mystery is fresh and self-aware, breaks the fourth wall allowing Louise Hegarty to create a unique and memorable debut novel.

There is a lot of grief that is explored in Fair Play, the death of parents and siblings specifically, and how family and friends come to grieve the loss of their loved ones.

Thank you to Pan Macmillan and Net Galley for sending me an advance copy of Fair Play.

Poignant and unexpected.

Abigail is planning a murder mystery on New Year’s Eve for her brother’s birthday. It’s a country pile, all their friends are there, the game is afoot, the murderer is caught, cue champagne, happy new year and bed. The next day a body is found for real.

This both is and isn’t a murder mystery and wasn’t at all what I was expecting. It’s sort of two books in one and when you know you know. I love the author’s devotion and expertise on detective fiction and simultaneously her careful handling of messy grief.

I genuinely can’t say more. If you’re looking for a pure murder mystery this might surprise and delight you and if you’re not a murder mystery fan, this might change your mind.

A locked room now locked inside my head. Thank you #PanMacmillan and #netgalley for my #arc

This story started off well and normal, then it went very weird. I didn't like this so stopped reading.

Fair play was a fair read that grew on me over time.
Abigail is sorting out the last few things for the New Year’s Eve party, it is also her brothers birthday on New Year’s Day. Benjamin invites just a few of his long time friends and this year his secretary. The party is a success as Abigail hosted the murder mystery night. In the morning though not everyone is alive.
The book bounces between carrying on with the murder mystery and Abigail struggling to cope with the death. The idea of the book was something I’ve not read before it just didn’t enrapture me completely at the start. The characters were quite weak and not really all that likeable. As I read through the book it did grow on me but it’s definitely not this authors best work but it’s not bad.
I would like to thank NetGalley and Pan MacMillan, Picador for this ARC I received in exchange for an honest review.

2.5 stars rounded down cos of the way it left me feeling.
I really don't know where to start with this review... I can't say much of what I want to for fear of spoilers... I'll do my best though...
We start well enough with Abigail inviting a bunch of people to a joint NYE and brother Benjamin's birthday party. It's to be held in a rather nice AirBnB and has a jazz-age Murder Mystery theme. So far so good. Most of the guests have known each other for many years, with the addition of the partner of one, only on the scene the past few years and a new addition, Benjamin's work colleague.
The usual NYE shenanigans ensue. Games are played, food ate, drink consumed. There's the odd awkward moment due to, well past stuff. But eventually they all go to bed, apart from the one who sleeps on the chair downstairs.
In the morning, they eventually realise that Benjamin hasn't rocked up for brekkie. After giving him a decent amount of time to sleep it off, they go check on him. The door is locked so they break it down. And discover him dead in his bed.
So far so good...
And then the book gets weird and splits. We follow a fictional detective acting in a metafiction way to investigate Benjamin's death, alongside witnessing Abigail's coming to terms with her brother's death - or not... I can't say much more about this as I don't want to skew your own opinions as to whether this works or not... Suffice to say it took a while for me to get with this method of storytelling and I am still not sure it worked for me, or indeed if the author ever really got to the point of what she was trying to say...
And then there is part three. I'm an intelligent person and I still don't get it. Sorry but it ruined the whole book for me and I was left very very confused. So much so that I actually read pretty much all of the reviews currently on Goodreads to try and find someone who had figured it out to my satisfaction. 45 minutes that I won't be getting back...
In fact, after finishing the book I only have three positive things to really say about the book.
Part one was great. I loved part two's detective and sidekick, especially the 4th wall breaking. It was sub 300 pages and well written so it didn't take too long to read.
Sorry to be brutal but I have to say it as I see it. At the end of the day, reviews are mixed, and I guess the bottom line is that this probably wasn't the book for me. As to whether I'd read the author again. Well, never say never, and if she ever writes another book featuring Bell & Sacker, I might be tempted.
My thanks go to the Publisher and Netgalley for the chance to read this book.

I am at a complete loss as to what Louise Hegarty wanted to achieve with Fair Play. Is it a conceptual/post-modern take on the murder mystery? Is it satire? Is it something that you come up with when you are bored with all the "new novels" being written and published recently? I just don't know. What I do know is that I did not draw much enjoyment from reading it. I'll be honest, I was curious, but the more I've read, the more puzzled I've been, and not in a good way....