The Trippy Mystery That Tripped Me Up
When there were so many characters I didn’t even care who the murderer was
I love mystery and thrillers, always have and always will. The mysteries I tend to read can be classified into two categories. First the ones that have wife, woman, or girl in the title, or some variation of that. Usually told from a female point of view, a woman getting some sort of revenge. Think Gone Girl, The Other Mrs, The Girl Before, The Wife Between Us, Then She Was gone. Notice the titles? Some of my favorite authors for these are Lisa Jewell, Mary Kubica, Ruth Ware and Greer Hendricks & Sarah Pekkanen. I love these books, they tend to go fast and have a few fun twists. I can devour one of these in an afternoon.
The others have some sort of historical, archaeological or anthropological background. Often times taking place in Europe, New York City, or some sort of chase around the world. These tend to be more series, like the Hawthorn & Horowitz series by Anthony Horowitz, Cotton Malone series by Steve Berry, Pendergast series by Preston & Child, and of course most famously the Robert Langdon series by Dan Brown. I like the mixing of fact and fiction in these series, and they remind me of my TV guilty pleasure, British murder mystery shows.
If there’s a British murder mystery show, I’ve seen it. Especially the ones that are on PBS and seem to be targeted to people over 60, I love those. Midsomer Murders, Lewis, Foyles War, Prime Suspect, Broadchurch, The Fall…I could keep going. So when I came across The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle, I was hoping it would be some sort of combination of the two. The cover had an art deco feel (historical, check!), with what I assumed was a female protagonist (check!), which I’ll be honest was part of the reason I picked it up, at my favorite local bookstore, Books Are Magic. Please don’t mix this up with The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, which is far superior, and just happens to have “seven” and “Evelyn” in the title.
The basic premise is that the main characters wakes up each day, which is the same day over and over, in the body of a different guest at a party at Blackheath House, the estate of the eponymous Evelyn Hardcastle and her family. He is missing his memories of who he was before and who his “host” was before, but he knows he must solve the murder of Evelyn. While I appreciated that at the front of the book there was a list of characters, I had to constantly turn to back to it remember who was who, and I watched Game of Thrones and had no issue keeping with all those characters. I contemplated DNFing it, but pushed through.
At the end when the pieces of the puzzle were coming together I found myself really not caring who or why murdered Evelyn. The “twist” felt like it was out of left field and unearned. For me there was no connection to the main character Aidan, who inhabited the rest of the guests, therefore I didn’t feel anything for him on his journey. While the concept of “Agatha Christie meets Groundhog Day” was interesting, for me it ultimately was a miss.
The one benefit of reading a book you don’t enjoy? Immediately going out and buying or borrowing new exciting books as a palate cleanser. I have Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow, Seven Days in June, and Red, White and Royal Blue on the way!
