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A review by mo_mentan
The Eighth Detective by Alex Pavesi
5.0
*4.5
i loved so many things about this. the concept is brilliant, as is the writing - the athmospheres in the short stories especially are incredibly well done. it often felt so neat, but sadly, there were moments where it didn't.
the concept of the mathematical equation to a detective story is an incredibly good one. i'm not quite good enough at maths to get it to paper perfectly and correctly, but i'll try.
so there are the killer(s), suspect(s) and detective(s) and the murder(s)
k must be at least 1 (natural numbers, but i think that's clear)
s must be at least 2
i think there must be 1 detective but it is in some ways conceivable that there is none
and there must be at least one murder.
everyone can be the killer (even the victim or one of the victimes): the detective(s), one up to all of the suspects and even the victim(s) (suicide or accident). everyone cam be involved or just one person, the detective can be a killer and a victim and a suspect and so on. there are many different permutations, an infinite number even considering that every group can be infititely large in theory.
it also says that clues are not part of the equation and that every constellation of suspects can have every outcome. that is very important for this novel, as julia rewrites the stories.
however, what makes a story the most satisfying is usually that the clues add up. and where as in some stories this was done perfectly here, the surrounding story especially seemed to lack a bit of it.
not all of the short stories are of the same quality. the first, the one about the man and the woman in the spanish villa, wasn't really satisfying. there is a reason why there are usually more than two suspects, sure of who's guilty. or at least it wasn't done very well. i definitely prefered the full ending though, it gave it another edge, made it more round (which makes sense).
the one about the woman falling from the cliff, isn't all too interesting either. here i did like elizabeth's ending better.
those two of course are the most restricting permetuations.
for most of the others, i prefered julia's ending - which didn't seem quite right, as it weren't her stories. but then, maybe she's just a great writer - it was elizabeth's first attempt after all. interesting also to look at this from the perspective of the equation: the resolve is completely up to the author, clues can be red herrings and be irrelevant and things can be explained away or constructed later on.
the third one about the girl in the bathtub was haunting as fuck, but also really interesting. i loved julia's ending to this one - unexpected and perfectly creepy - and didn't think elizabeth's felt natural at all.
the one about the inferno, the murder in the bathroom of the restaurant at the victim's party, had the most incredible athmosphere. i really did like julia's orient express ending - and therefore didn't care for the original. again, it didn't seem to add up although it perfectly well may in theory, it just wasn't as satisfying. the only thing somewhat nice what that the fire was explained, but then i just don't like when much of the motive is madness.
trouble on blur pearl island was my absolute favourite, although i was so fucking afraid while listening to it (i certainly am one for cozy mysteries, not thrillers). again, julia's ending was fabulous and seemed to fit perfectly, and her explanation about the two women leaving the room because they trusted each other was much more convincing than having them be the murderers. alwo, i thought the thing that didn't add up, the dog, was very well done in this instance.
i would have liked an explination to why the murderer killed his wife, but that's all. otherwise it was so incredibly suspensefull and i loved the jane eyre aspect - but especially the very un-jane-eyre-like ending - we like a good killing of patriarchal husbands.
i will never stand on a bed to kill a mosquito anymore tho.
then came the one about the family and the way julia switched the group of murderers to the other half of the suspects. here i didn't think any of the solutions came naturally. the natures of too many characters seemed to be switched around at will. i had loved the setting though.
for the last one, or rather, the last two, i actually liked both. julia's, the first one, about the detective being the victim and only slowly understanding that he is, in fact, death, was very interesting. the supernatural element, the thing about forgetting your hardships when you go to heaven made sense and the way we learned about his childhood through the scars on his body. i would like to know more about the dead girl he found as a boy though.
elizabeth's story, then, was completely different, although it had some of the same motifs (this was the one about the two detectives in the haunted attic). it made more sense for the structure, the detectives, the killers and the victims being all the same, another extreme permutation.
the ending of the surrounding story was somewhat disappointing. grant not being grant made much sense, the father thing maybe was a little too much. but the thing about grant having murdered elizabeth just wasn't satisfying. the little "faults" were just a joke? not supposed to show anyone anything? i think i would have prefered for him to have written them in so someone could find the murderer, because he knew about them or something. elizabeth could have been julia's mother? something like that.
also, not to say my girl elizabeth couldn't have been a queer icon or a great ally, but it does somehow seem unrealistic that a young girl in the fourties, wishing to be published, would write a gay love story into one of her short stories? (the dying doctor from the family case). it would have made much more sense for grant to have written that.
it wasn't entirely unsatisfying, but it wasn't perfectly round, which was disappointing because i had loved so much about this. i just coulen't stop listening, the suspense was so much in places that i had to turn up the speed abd i was totally creeped out. it's all kind of a blurr.
i loved so many things about this. the concept is brilliant, as is the writing - the athmospheres in the short stories especially are incredibly well done. it often felt so neat, but sadly, there were moments where it didn't.
the concept of the mathematical equation to a detective story is an incredibly good one. i'm not quite good enough at maths to get it to paper perfectly and correctly, but i'll try.
so there are the killer(s), suspect(s) and detective(s) and the murder(s)
k must be at least 1 (natural numbers, but i think that's clear)
s must be at least 2
i think there must be 1 detective but it is in some ways conceivable that there is none
and there must be at least one murder.
everyone can be the killer (even the victim or one of the victimes): the detective(s), one up to all of the suspects and even the victim(s) (suicide or accident). everyone cam be involved or just one person, the detective can be a killer and a victim and a suspect and so on. there are many different permutations, an infinite number even considering that every group can be infititely large in theory.
it also says that clues are not part of the equation and that every constellation of suspects can have every outcome. that is very important for this novel, as julia rewrites the stories.
however, what makes a story the most satisfying is usually that the clues add up. and where as in some stories this was done perfectly here, the surrounding story especially seemed to lack a bit of it.
not all of the short stories are of the same quality. the first, the one about the man and the woman in the spanish villa, wasn't really satisfying. there is a reason why there are usually more than two suspects, sure of who's guilty. or at least it wasn't done very well. i definitely prefered the full ending though, it gave it another edge, made it more round (which makes sense).
the one about the woman falling from the cliff, isn't all too interesting either. here i did like elizabeth's ending better.
those two of course are the most restricting permetuations.
for most of the others, i prefered julia's ending - which didn't seem quite right, as it weren't her stories. but then, maybe she's just a great writer - it was elizabeth's first attempt after all. interesting also to look at this from the perspective of the equation: the resolve is completely up to the author, clues can be red herrings and be irrelevant and things can be explained away or constructed later on.
the third one about the girl in the bathtub was haunting as fuck, but also really interesting. i loved julia's ending to this one - unexpected and perfectly creepy - and didn't think elizabeth's felt natural at all.
the one about the inferno, the murder in the bathroom of the restaurant at the victim's party, had the most incredible athmosphere. i really did like julia's orient express ending - and therefore didn't care for the original. again, it didn't seem to add up although it perfectly well may in theory, it just wasn't as satisfying. the only thing somewhat nice what that the fire was explained, but then i just don't like when much of the motive is madness.
trouble on blur pearl island was my absolute favourite, although i was so fucking afraid while listening to it (i certainly am one for cozy mysteries, not thrillers). again, julia's ending was fabulous and seemed to fit perfectly, and her explanation about the two women leaving the room because they trusted each other was much more convincing than having them be the murderers. alwo, i thought the thing that didn't add up, the dog, was very well done in this instance.
i would have liked an explination to why the murderer killed his wife, but that's all. otherwise it was so incredibly suspensefull and i loved the jane eyre aspect - but especially the very un-jane-eyre-like ending - we like a good killing of patriarchal husbands.
i will never stand on a bed to kill a mosquito anymore tho.
then came the one about the family and the way julia switched the group of murderers to the other half of the suspects. here i didn't think any of the solutions came naturally. the natures of too many characters seemed to be switched around at will. i had loved the setting though.
for the last one, or rather, the last two, i actually liked both. julia's, the first one, about the detective being the victim and only slowly understanding that he is, in fact, death, was very interesting. the supernatural element, the thing about forgetting your hardships when you go to heaven made sense and the way we learned about his childhood through the scars on his body. i would like to know more about the dead girl he found as a boy though.
elizabeth's story, then, was completely different, although it had some of the same motifs (this was the one about the two detectives in the haunted attic). it made more sense for the structure, the detectives, the killers and the victims being all the same, another extreme permutation.
the ending of the surrounding story was somewhat disappointing. grant not being grant made much sense, the father thing maybe was a little too much. but the thing about grant having murdered elizabeth just wasn't satisfying. the little "faults" were just a joke? not supposed to show anyone anything? i think i would have prefered for him to have written them in so someone could find the murderer, because he knew about them or something. elizabeth could have been julia's mother? something like that.
also, not to say my girl elizabeth couldn't have been a queer icon or a great ally, but it does somehow seem unrealistic that a young girl in the fourties, wishing to be published, would write a gay love story into one of her short stories? (the dying doctor from the family case). it would have made much more sense for grant to have written that.
it wasn't entirely unsatisfying, but it wasn't perfectly round, which was disappointing because i had loved so much about this. i just coulen't stop listening, the suspense was so much in places that i had to turn up the speed abd i was totally creeped out. it's all kind of a blurr.