Book #101 of 2019:

The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton

[Note: I’ve used the original British title for this book, which was changed to ‘The 7½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle’ for publication in America to avoid confusion with Taylor Jenkins Reid’s unrelated novel ‘The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo.’ I prefer the sound of the original, in part because there’s not really any extra half-death to be found.]

The premise of this mystery novel from debut author Stuart Turton reminds me favorably of Claire North, whose high-concept thrillers are always a delight. If the final result here is not quite as strong as that seasoned writer’s typical output, it’s only because Turton displays the slightest tendency to care less about the heart of his characters than about all the convoluted intricacies of the plot around them. But when the narrative is as brilliantly mind-bending as this one, it’s hard to consider that much of a fault.

At the start of our tale, the protagonist suddenly comes to in the grounds an old manor home, to see a woman being chased through the woods. He has no memories from before this moment, and the puzzles of the household and his own identity soon begin piling up in true Agatha Christie fashion. When he goes to bed, however, he finds himself waking up back in the morning of that same day — and in the body of a different guest. A mysterious figure tells this strange hero that he must solve the murder that happens every night, or else be stuck rotating among the oblivious assembly forever.

He is also not the only outsider assigned to the task, and so the body-swapping time-loop whodunnit that ensues is also a race against unknown adversaries in addition to the more ignorant flailings of his earlier selves. It’s an exceedingly complex story with chrono-twists as hard to track as the movie Primer, and although it all falls more or less into place by the end, there’s a bit of that sense that the writer is more smugly satisfied than any of the characters. Still, Turton has got some reason to feel that way with a feat like this, and I mostly enjoyed trying to follow along.

[Content warning for intense fatphobia in the narrator’s reaction to one of his new bodies, which is completely unexamined by the text. It’s also weird to me that this character never wakes up as any of the ladies in the estate, and that this is similarly never remarked upon.]

★★★★☆

Find me on Patreon | Goodreads | Blog | Twitter