‘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 guests summoned to Blackheath for the party – can solve her murder, the day will repeat itself, over and over again. Every time ending with the fateful pistol shot.

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

My thanks to The First Monday Crime team for my review copy.

My thanks to who???  Well let me explain…First Monday Crime allow us readers the chance to spend the evening in the company of some damn fine crime writers. They meet on the First Monday of each month in a very accessible location in London town and, while I think it would much more fun if they came to Scotland now and then, I guess London is pretty handy for some folk.

If you fancy popping along to April’s meeting to see what all the fuss is about then the deets can be found here: https://www.firstmondaycrime.com/      It is a free event and the April 2018 meeting is on 9th April (which is actually the 2nd Monday in April but I guess it was easier to move the day than to rename the event…damn these religious festivals interfering with our plans).

The April 2018 panel features John Connolly, Rachel Abbott, Stuart Turton, and Leigh Russell and it will be moderated by Barry Forshaw.  As Mr Stuart Turton is on the panel I have taken the opportunity to peruse his stormingly good novel The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle ahead of next week’s shenanigans.

To the book:

I had seen a lot of chat about Seven Deaths on the Twitter place before I had the chance to read the book.  The most repeated phrase was “Groundhog Day” so I knew that there was a recurring day…forewarned that it was not a “vanilla” story. What I had not expected was that Stuart Turton had given us a belter of a read which I can only describe as “Quantum Leap meets Agatha Christie”.

Fan-Bloody-Tastic.

If you missed the seminal tv show (which ran for 5 seasons between 1989 and 1993) then you will have no idea why I fell so utterly in love with this book.  In the show Dr Sam Beckett “leaps” into a different body each week.  He looks like the person who’s body he has taken over but he controls their words and deeds and it is down to Sam to save the day each episode to ensure wrongs are righted, history is kept on track or the bully is stopped from causing further misery.

In Seven Deaths we have Aiden.  He has no idea what is happening to him but when he wakes at the start of the book he is in the body of a young man who may just have seen a murder. He is bloody and confused but is guided back to a large stately home where preparations are underway for a very unusual party.  It soon becomes clear to the reader that something very unusual is happening and it is not long before we learn that Aiden is using the body of the first of 8 different hosts.  He will experience the same day inside 8 different people and at the end of 8 days he has to provide proof of the identity of a murderer.

Yup we know who is going to die (clue is in the title) and we know when she dies but Aiden is tasked with working out who the killer is (and proving it). Aiden will have some assistance in his quest – a mysterious figure who appears in a Plague Doctor costume and tasks Aiden with his mission to identify the killer.   Also assisting is Anna, a young woman who seems to understand that despite the outward appearance Aiden will be different people she meets over the course of a single day.  What further complicates issues is that Aiden is not the only person who is body hopping and trying to find the murderer.  Oh and if that was not enough to contend with – someone wants Aiden dead too.

I love a clever book and The Seven Deaths Of Evelyn Hardcastle is a VERY clever book which ticked every single box for me.  It even ticked boxes I did not know needed to be ticked – it is an astonishing piece of story telling and the journey from first page to last was a joy.

There is a LOT going on in this book and I have no idea how the author (or his poor editor) kept on top of all the timelines and character placements…I can only assume that more than a normal amount of migraine tablets were consumed in the making of this book. However, their endeavours mean we get to enjoy this beast of a story. I cannot think of a book like it and I wish I could have the chance to read it all over again without knowing the twists that are contained within.

The phrase “five star read” undersells how much I enjoyed The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle.

The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle is published by Raven Books and is available in Hardback, Digital and Audio. You can order a copy here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Seven-Deaths-Evelyn-Hardcastle/dp/1408889560/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1522877576&sr=1-1