Book Review: The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton

The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle

by

Stuart Turton

This book is another that I had to buy after reading so many good things about it on Social media. As a massive fan of murder mysteries it did not take long for me to decide this. This book is Stuart Turton's debut novel so how this was going to read like I had no clue.

"WOW! A slick, wild, mind blowing, rollercoaster of a murder mystery"

Blurb:

Somebody's going to be murdered at the ball tonight. It won't appear to be a murder and so the murderer won't be caught. Rectify that injustice and I'll show you the way out....

It is meant to be a celebration but it ends in tragedy. As fireworks explode overhead, Evelyn Hardcastle, the young and beautiful daughter of the house, is killed.

But Evelyn will not die just once. Until Aiden - one of the guest summoned to Blackheath for the party - can solve her murder, the day will repeat itself, over and over again. Every time ending with that fateful pistol shot.

The only way to break this cycle is to identify her killer. But each time the day begins again, Aiden wakes in the body of a different guest. And someone is desperate to stop him ever escaping Blackheath....

Review:

Where do I start? This book was just WOW... I absolutely loved it. Murder mysteries are one of my favourite genre's to read and this one is up there as one of the best I have ever read. It is packed with twists and turns that keep you guessing (wrongly) all the way till the end. I don't want to sound like a lot of people that have reviewed this book, but it is so Agatha Christie.. Agatha Christie with access to a time machine I may add. It is set after the war so no modern technology for solving murders but with a sci-fi twist. The twist being that the day starts over again at the end of each day, with the main character waking up in the body of someone different every time. The one thing I really love about murder mysteries is that, yes, you are reading the book but you are also trying to solve the crime in your own head just like the characters are in the book. This book I kept having to set aside for a bit to try and think about it. If this was a puzzle this would be set to a hard level. This however does not mean if you are not as geeky as I am you will not love this book. If you are looking for something that is completely different and will blow your mind, this is the book for you. Did I get it right in the end? Nope... Nowhere near. 

The characters in this book were brilliantly written, ranging from upper class to working class, but when it comes to murder it does not matter what class you are. Another thing that was great about this book was the main character was 9 different characters (himself + 8 others) which meant you really got to learn quite a lot about so many of them. Each one picking up something different about the day and as the bodies keep turning up the more you could not trust any of them.

I scored this book a 5 out of 5.. An absolute brilliant read. As mentioned above this has moved up to near the top of my list of favourite books and I will definitely be reading this again some day. I can't wait to see what Stuart Turton will bring us next.

Have you read this book? what do you think? Do you agree with me or not? Let me know...

Speak soon,

CBailey31