Book Review : The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle - Stuart Turton
Body swap, time loop, selective memory loss, psychopathic footman, an English house party, and a locked room murder - all these daring components are meticulously put together in this mystery novel. What makes it more special, is the fact that this lofty enterprise is the debut of the author. It almost felt like watching a play unfold with a quintessential touch of British dry humor.
Plot
Aiden Bishop, the narrator of the story is stuck in a time loop that can be broken only when he finds the murderer of Evelyn Hardcastle. To make it more complicated, every day Aiden wakes up in different bodies of people who are in the Blackheath Manor with selective memories of previous days and a bungled perspective of the host whose body he is in. He only has 8 days and 8 lives to figure out the murderer and get out of the Mansion. He is not alone in this quest, others like him are also competing to find the murderer as only one of them can break the loop and get out of the Mansion.
At first, it is hard to get a grip on what is going on with the mayhem that is only expected to be set in an English mansion, that is frantically getting ready for an evening party. As the story progresses, we slowly get into the minds of the plethora of characters in the household and their involvement, or the lack of it, in the murder of Evelyn Hardcastle.
For most of the book, I was thrilled and intrigued while putting together the fatal day of the murder from various people's perspectives and their confusing timelines and conflicting interests, until I hit the Aha! moment. I wish the book ended after the true discovery of the murderer and the reason behind the act. However, it went on after the resolution to a different subplot about Aiden and Anna(another competitor of Aiden in the whodunit quest). They relive the entire day again and also give us the reasoning behind these characters being stuck in that fateful mansion, which felt tedious. I understand that this subplot gives closure to some loose ends, but as a reader, I wished it was dealt with differently. Perhaps it would have shortened the novel (528 pages) and made it less of a labor-intensive read.
Nevertheless, it was a scenic roller-coaster ride right from the beginning till the end, showing you a glimpse of what you see is not what truly is. Indeed a classic mystery novel. I am looking forward to reading his other works.
-Preethi