you to Netgalley and the publisher for giving me this ARC. This review is posted on Goodreads on October 1st.

What did I just read?

I don't even really know my feelings about this book (the end though...).
There's so many things I liked about this book but it didn't work as good as could have for me.

This book is a murder mystery and it's one of a kind. I, for sure, never read another book like this one.
There's three parts that are very distinct but follows the same character.
After reading the summary of this book I thought that I was going to read another mystery like Knives out, or some kind of Agatha Christie book, which I really like.
This book wasn't quite like that and it confused me very quickly, I was always so confuse about what was going on.

To talk about this book I feel like I have to talk about each part in a little more details ( but without spoilers as usual).
The first part was setting the scene and made us meet the main cast, the quick change of narrators was a little confusing but it worked.
The second part was absolutely confusing, I don't know what was going on but I was on for the ride, I wanted to know where this was going and I did like that detective. But I feel like as I was reading this wasn't really leading anywhere.
The third part disapointed me a lot, it felt like nothing was going anywhere and I was waiting for a lot more. This ending was super weird and I wasn't expecting that (but not in a good way)

So, I liked the idea, it was extremely original but it all fell flat in the end (a little before the thrid part started).
One point I really liked was the treatment of grieve, it was really really well written, it's probably why it's a 3 stars and not a 2.

‘Fair Play’ by Louise Hegarty is a unique and ingenious whodunnit which will leave you reeling, smirking and thinking. Telling the story of Abigail, who hires a grand old house and gathers together her brother Benjamin’s friends for a murder mystery party to celebrate his birthday. The eventful evening ends with the guests retiring to bed, but when the sun rises, Benjamin does not…

Thus begins a twisting, turning investigation which includes plenty of knowing references, multiple lightbulb moments and scandals galore, as well as some head-scratching that might leave you flipping back to check you read something correctly. With distinct and varied characters, a timeless setting, and all the right ingredients for a locked room mystery, the novel remains gripping throughout and introduces a strange fourth wall-breaking detective. I can’t say much more at this stage without spoilers!

I’m very torn about my rating for this one… as I read the last pages, I felt sad, amazed and frustrated, and I was left with a head full of thoughts that will stay with me for a while. Ultimately, I’m giving it four stars - it is definitely very accomplished and stylish for a debut, and worth savouring… even if you might feel like it’s not all quite fair play!

I received an advance Digital Review Copy of this book from the publisher Pan MacMillan via NetGalley. The opinions expressed in this review are my own.

Let's chat about "Fair Play" by Louise Hegarty. This book, from another amazing Irish author, will be available to buy on the 3rd of April 2025 and let me tell you - put your pre-order ASAP and in a proper paperback or hardback - you can thank me later.
At the beginning I was expecting just an old plain murder mystery, another version of whodunit but I was so so wrong.
There is a birthday party on New Year's Eve with traditional murder mystery game but when everyone wake up next morning it appears that someone is dead... There will be police officer, detective with his side kick and a lot of drama but let this not fool you.. This exceptional work is an excellent description of grief and ones way of dealing with it. It's a story of love, loyalty, mistakes and regrets. I can't imagine bravery of the author when she was approaching publishers as I don't think I've ever read anything even slightly similar to it and yet so compelling. Masterpiece in its form

Thanks to Netgalley and Pan Macmillan for the opportunity to read an early copy of #FairPlay

Some novels simply defy categorization and Fair Play is one of them.
Mystery? Sure. There is a body, a quirky detective and his sidekick, suspects and red herrings- all the staples of the mystery novel genre, but what if I tell you that in reality this novel is about grief and processing it?
Let me explain:
First clue that this is something different is the entirety of Part One where we are introduced to characters and the event story revolves around- Benjamin's birthday/New Year celebration. Abigail, his sister is the organizer of the event and just like every year before, the theme of the party is a murder mystery where all of the invitees have role and try to solve the murder. But the morning after the party, Benjamin is dead. You see, the entire Part One is written in a dreaded omniscient point of view which, I guess, was bit of a writing experiment, but I'd say it's primary purpose is to set a stage.
Part Two opens with the arrival of famous detective Auguste Bell who is invited by Abigail to come and solve the mystery of how Benjamin died and who is responsible. Intersected with chapters of Bell's investigation are chapters of Abigail's life in the aftermath of Benjamin's death.
Simply put, the part with the detective is a satire of the Golden Age mystery genre and locked room genre in particular.

"To the average observer, it may have seemed as though Auguste Bell did nothing more than walk from the motorcar to the front door of the house. But anyone who knew the detective would tell you that he had already made half a dozen observations on that short journey."


Established and made popular by John Dickinson Carr, locked room genre was always the type of mystery more preoccupied with "how the murder was committed" than "who is the culprit." How did the murder happen when the door are locked from the inside in a windowless room? And the ingenuity of the genre is in the most inventive and insane ways authors come up with to explain the impossible murder, and yes, things can get ridiculous. So, in this novel detective Bell is a blended version of Gideon Fell and Poirot as he investigates the murder of Benjamin and we have no idea how we even came to the part where it is a murder at all or why the suspects/witnesses just go with his instruction not to leave the house until he comes to a conclusion nor how police inspector just shows up at the house to inform Bell of something important. Bell often breaks the forth wall reminding reader of the observation he made in chapter 17 or of the fact that his sidekick has to be slightly less intelligent than the average reader, something his sidekick Sacker would get offended by if he didn't lack intelligence to realize. :)
The purpose of this is two-fold, as I think Hegarty had a blast poking fun at the genre she is clearly familiar with and likes. But the way I understood this is that entire detective part was just Abigail's way to deal with the death of her brother. We are told from the beginning that she is very close to her brother and she loves him a lot because he is the only family she's left. She loves organizing birthdays for him and she tries to out-do herself every year by coming up with more elaborate mysteries for guests to solve. She reads about it and researches all the rules of locked room mysteries be it T. S. Eliot’s rules in ‘Homage to Wilkie Collins' or S. S. Van Dine’s 'Twenty Rules for Writing Detective Stories' which are all real resources. There is a certain comfort in following rules and I think that Abigail deals with initial shock of her brother's death in her head by putting it into familiar frame of locked-room mystery and it's well-known trajectory with rules. This is why the detective part of the story is more than often nonsensical and disjointed from things like condolences notes and Abigail's return to work scene. Just take the part with multiple endings: the notion is that in the locked room mystery everyone can be made culprit if the detective presents it and he explains the motive and the modus operandi, but in real life people often have a jerk reaction to blame it on someone or something to understand why until, in time, they come to realization that it doesn't really matter because the person you love is not here. This is the process Abigail goes through as she tries to deal with her brother's death.
I love when authors decide to do something risky for their debut novel, no matter how successful it ends up. This novel is a writing experiment and I loved the intention behind it if not really the execution. I almost quit as I was reading Part One because omniscient view is tricky to pull and I was not a fan. Satire was also a bit too on the nose sometimes and in my opinion, it got in the way of the real message.

All in all, this was interesting.
By broadest definition, mystery is "something that's impossible or hard to understand or explain" and in that sense this novel deals with that. What is harder to understand and explain than the sudden death of beloved person in your life?

Abigail organizes their friend group's annual New Year's Eve party which then morphs into her brother Benjamin's birthday party the following day. This year's theme is a murder mystery party and Abigail has spread out the clues all over the Airbnb they rented for the weekend. Everyone has fun, the night ends well. But the next day, they find Benjamin dead in his room. From this point, the story turns into a murder mystery in the vein of Golden Age detective stories, and famous consulting detective Aguste Bell arrives on the scene to solve the murder. But can he, and by extension Abigail, find the answers to this mystery?

✨

I am a fan of Agatha Christie's novels, so when I read the blurb for Fair Play I was automatically interested in reading the book. Benjamin's death presents a locked room mystery, and a group of friends with various motives and secrets presents the perfect pool of suspects for renowned detective Auguste Bell.

There is a catch though. This book actually has a dual narrative, with chapters alternating between Bell's Golden Age detective sleuthing and Abigail's present-day grief in the aftermath of her brother's death. And I loved this concept, this take on making sense of the grief and loss through a murder mystery.

Auguste Bell's chapters take us back to the past, pre-internet and pre-cellphones. The Airbnb becomes an estate, and a butler, a housekeeper, and a part-time gardener are added to the mix. His chapters are very tongue-in-cheek, often breaking the fourth wall, addressing the readers and calling out references to the various rules of detective mysteries set forth by various other writers. Bell also points out that some events will be revealed in future chapters. Aside from the meta elements, these chapters are very reminiscent of our favorite Agathe Christie novels.

Contrast that with Abigail's chapters. Her narrative is rooted in mundane reality. Her brother is dead, and she is expected to live her life and go back to her normal routines. But she can't because she is drowning in grief and nothing else seems to matter as much as it did before. Compared to Bell's fun and lighthearted chapters, Abigail's is bleak and distant. The tone shift is done really well in my opinion, and we really hone in on how Abigail's grief has a dulling effect on her, and everything just feels so distant and unimportant to her.

Abigail attempts to make sense of Benjamin's death, using Bell and the murder-mystery narrative to find the answers she so desperately wants. When death is sudden and unexpected, we are often left wondering why it happened and if there was anything we missed that could have changed things. But as Abigail's therapist says, sometimes we won't ever find *the truth* but we will come to find *a truth*. And that sometimes life demands that that should be enough.

The final chapter of this book was so sweet and sad. It painted a picture of how close Benjamin and Abigail were, and how he felt as the older brother.

I came for the murder mystery and stayed for the feels.
Thank you to NetGalley and Pan Macmillan for the digital ARC.

It's been a while since I actively disliked a book this much. First of all, the first chapter reads like a shopping list, or maybe someone giving a statement just recapping actions without getting emotional about it. It was dry, just listing out things, boring, no insight or depth. But I persevered because I wanted to at least get to the "murder mystery dinner" part. I thought, maybe when the conversation starts flowing, it will get better.

🤨🤨🤨

It did not. Part 1 remained dry and boring and almost pointless as we did not really get to be part of the murder mystery dinner. We meet our characters, but we don't really get to know them.

Part 2 is where it gets really confusing, but maybe the formatting has a lot to answer for here. And mind you, I read it as an ARC, so I hope that by the time this hits the shelves, it will be formatted in a way that makes more sense.
Because of this weird formatting, some paragraphs were inserted in the middle of a different paragraph, words in the middle of the page, and it was generally distracting for the flow of the story. It took me a while to realise that there are two stories running parallel to each other.
Even then, there is no real depth to any of the characters. I did not care for Abigail AT ALL. I couldn't care less how she dealt with her grief and how she went on with her life after losing Benjamin. She didn't impress me as a hostess, she didn't impress me as a friend or sister. I just felt nothing.
What pissed me off the most, is the ending. What even was the Part 3?!?!

The novel begins with a group of friends attending a Murder Mystery weekend on New Years Eve. Unfortunately, it turns into a real-life tragedy.
Uniquely told breaking the 4th wall when a well renowned detective and his side-kick turn up to try to solve the murder.
At times I found the two parallel stories a confusing and disorientating read, mixing the present day with a golden age mystery. I had to keep stopping and rereading. The chapters explaining the rules of writing a mystery novel and what to include/ not to include, was weird and broke the flow of the story for me.
This book was well written and different to anything I have ever read before.
Many thanks to the author, publisher and NetGalley UK for the ARC.

A fun, unique and inventive novel. Fair Play by Louise Hegarty is hard to define, part-murder mystery reminiscent of Agatha Christie with some interesting meta-elements. I loved that it was a detective novel that knows it’s a detective novel with the fourth wall breaks really bringing something unique and fun. For most of this book, I had this pegged as my top read of the year, it was that interesting and fresh, however the later half of the book brought it down for me. Maybe it just went over my head, or didn’t live up to the high expectations I’d set thus far, but nonetheless this one is worth reading. Highly recommend.

A group of friends come together at an AirB&B to celebrate New Year and Benjamin's birthday. Abigail, his sister, puts on a mystery for them to solve with series of clues and red herrings to follow. The evening turns into a party as champagne is drunk and food eaten but the gathering does not go to plan as when they wake in the morning one of them is dead.
So far so good. The novel then changes with the arrival of an eminent detective to solve the puzzle of the death as the local police believe it to be a suicide. What follows is just plain strange as various strands of the story change and the house suddenly becomes an estate with staff and the jobs of Benjamin and Abigail change. I kept reading hoping it would all become clear in the end but sadly it simply became more muddled in my eyes.
I was disappointed because the blurb for the book was intriguing and I love a good mystery. The writing was good, although the characters were rather shallow and I didn't feel invested in any of them. In fairness though it is a quick read and there wasn't a lot of space to develop them but even so I didn't even feel much for Abigail.
With thanks to Netgalley and The Picador Team for an arc copy in return for an honest review.

This was definitely an interesting and intriguing read! You are thrown off quite at the start by the twist, and may take a bit of time to stabilise yourself again with what's happening, but then it picks up pacing wise quite quickly. The only thing I'm unsure of is the cover and title. Overall I enjoyed it greatly!

The story centres on Abigail, who organises a New Year’s Eve murder mystery party for her brother Benjamin’s birthday. However, when Benjamin is found dead the following morning, the party turns into a real mystery with the arrival of detective Auguste Bell.

The book’s premise is clever, but can at times be a bit confusing as it jumps between two timelines—Abigail's grief and the detective’s investigation—making it hard to follow at times.

This book is best for fans of classic detective stories especially those who enjoy thought-provoking mysteries,

I loved the premise for this locked room mystery set on New years Eve with a birthday celebration and the incoming year. It has two stories cleverly running in parallel but ultimately I had to give up reading it as I just couldn't follow it. I made several attempts to reread it but sadly failed as I just found it too confusing.

Fair Play is a literary fiction novel that plays with the murder mystery, as a woman's brother's locked room death sparks a new narrative. Abigail has thrown a New Year's Eve murder mystery party for her brother Benjamin's birthday, at an old house she found on AirBnB. The night plays out with small dramas, but when they wake up, Benjamin is dead in his room. Suddenly, a new narrative emerges, with a famous detective, household servants, and motives, whilst Abigail is trying to deal with her brother's death and his life.

This novel has a great concept at its heart: what if you turned a modern day death into a 20th century murder mystery, whilst paralleling that with the present day grief of the dead man's sister. The switch early on when the murder mystery narrative (rather than the party) begins is genuinely disorienting, which feels like a clever way of showing how Abigail's life is suddenly thrown apart. The detective parts do start to drag, being highly metafictional but also feeling quite empty, especially as different endings occur. I found the present day snippets a powerful look at a woman's experiences with grief and especially other people, though the blurb's promise of her finding out there was lots she didn't know about Benjamin's life never really manifested, so it was mostly ambiguous.

I liked what Fair Play does with two parallel narratives of unravelling the truth, but I found in execution that it didn't quite work for me because the parts never fully managed to come together into something beyond what they were each doing throughout. The ending is very ambiguous, with a kind of quiet sadness, but when so much of the book was an increasingly tiring detective story, for me it felt like it didn't quite work. However, I can imagine that the book might work quite well adapted into a weird film, in which the parallels could be played with in new ways.

I loved the premise of the book and the author clearly knows her Golden Age crime fiction. It took me quite a while to figure out what was going on which is no bad thing , as it kept me interested. However in the end, I don't think the juxtaposition of the two stories worked and the lack of resolution in 'real life' left me frustrated. Clever, interesting and original but ultimately a little flat.

I was intrigued enough to request this book but I just don't get it.

Abigail and a c group of friends rent an Airbnb for a themed New Year's Eve murder mystery party. Not only is it New Year's Eve but it's also her brother Benjamin's birthday. The guests assemble and the fun begins. This first part, written in the present tense, reads like directions for a theatrical play I've read many books written in the present tense, but this one just didn't sit right with me.

What follows is so strange I just couldn't get into it. I have tried a couple of times but each time I stumble at the same place, so I've had to give up altogether.

I read this in August, almost eight months before it was released and I’m still thinking about it. this is an inventive, clever read that ensures you keep your wits about you. Siblings Abigail and Benjamin are set for another birthday shindig for the latter – and on New Year’s Eve. Abigail’s planned a murder mystery party… but Benjamin ends up being the unlikely (and unwilling) victim. Then everything turns upside down with the arrival of a detective to solve the case. More characters are introduced, timelines are altered, extra pieces of information are included in a wonderful read that will have you smiling and frantically hoping you remembered what was so important about something 50 pages previously.

This is all on me. I admit it. This is a quick read, but I did not get how it subverts the subgenre of whodunnits, and I love many Agatha Christie novels, as well as other whodunnits. I read some pages again, and I still could not experience what I assumed I would experience.
I might need to give it another go again in a couple of months. I liked the exercise of breaking the 4th wall, and some parts were witty. Other than these, I did not know what to make of this book.
I would say, trust the others' who have fully enjoyed it than my review, but I am leaving this here because this was how my authentic experience was.

I was excited to read Fair Play by Louise Hegarty as I’d heard quite a lot of buzz around it.

Abigail is hosting a New Year’s Eve Party and Birthday Party for her brother Benjamin in a country house in rural Ireland. Their childhood friends and other close friends join them for the party. The night begins with an organised Murder Mystery interactive event organised by Abigail, they then all enjoy fine food and drink and have a good time. They see the New Year in and celebrate Benjamin’s Birthday.

And then everyone wakes up on New Year’s Day, except Benjamin…

The book pivots with the arrival of the world renowned detective Auguste Bell arrives with his assistant Sacker to investigate Benjamin’s death - is it a Locked Room Murder Mystery? References to the Golden-Age Mysteries abound.

The book moves between Auguste Bell’s investigation and the Guards investigating and Abigail trying to understand her brother’s death.

It was an interesting read and something a bit different in the murder mystery genre. I look forward to reading what Fiona Hegarty writes next.

Huge thanks to NetGalley and the publishers, Pan Macmillan / Picador, for making this e-ARC available to me in exchange for a fair and an honest review.

For several years Abigail has arranged a murder mystery weekend to celebrate her brother’s birthday. This year’s theme is Jazz Age Detective, appropriate for the beautifully restored 1920s country house she’s rented. After the crime is solved, their guests take themselves off to bed some drunker than others. Next morning, there’s no sign of Benjamin: his bedroom door is locked with no sound within. The group are horrified to discover that their friend and brother has died in the night aged only thirty-three. The police arrive then, oddly, a celebrated detective turns up called in by Abigail to solve the mystery of her brother’s death.
Louise Hegarty’s novel starts with a straightforward narrative, establishing relationships, scattering a few red herrings before turning into a pastiche locked room mystery interspersed with Abigail’s struggles to accept her brother Benjamin’s death. Quite a risky idea for any novel, let alone a debut, but, on the whole, it worked for me. She has a lot of fun with the genre, laying out sets of rules from T S Eliot, Father Knox and S. S. Van Dine and modelling her detective on Poirot with a dash of Sherlock Holmes. Abigail’s attempts to understand what's happened and her discovery that she knew less than she thought she did about her brother's life provide some depth to the novel. The combination of the two is disconcerting at first but eventually its purpose becomes clear. I enjoyed Hegarty’s playful witty novel; I wonder what she’ll come up with next.

Abigail and her brother, Benjamin, always host a themed “house-party” for a few close friends to celebrate the New Year and Benjamin’s birthday on New Year’s Day. Abigail is in charge, and arrives at the chosen country house venue well-laden with food and wine., and quickly sets, to preparing for the arrival of the guests. She is rather surprised when the first arrival turns out to be one of her brother’s work colleagues - Barbara - and can’t quite figure out why she has been invited, unless Benjamin intends to do some work whilst there. Soon everyone is gathered, Benjamin, Stephen, Declan, Margaret, Cormac and Olivia and the party begins. New Year’s Eve is duly celebrated in style with copious amounts of champagne consumed well into the night. With the exception of Declan, who falls asleep downstairs, everyone eventually makes it to bed and all but Benjamin manage to appear for breakfast. Eventually Abigail decides that she must go and wake him up but finds his bedroom door locked (presumably from the inside) and cannot rouse him. Eventually, with the aid of Cormac and Declan the door is forced and Benjamin is found cold and dead and his balcony door is open.

Police are naturally called and are joined by Auguste Bell a world-renowned detective, who is convinced that he can reveal which of the party is the murderer - but can he??? Confusion reigns!