Investigate, Sleep, Die, Repeat.
Your usual Christie with a dash of Nolan’s Inception and a pinch of Cruise’s Edge of Tomorrow. Don’t give me dubious looks but that is the best way I can describe something as novel as The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle. The dish does seem insipid when you hear about it for the first time. Surprisingly, it is anything but. Chocolate Frog anyone? TL;DR: I will save you the time. Just go read it. It is simply mind blowing and that is probably an understatement.
Still here? Good, for me that is. This is my first book review just as Seven Deaths is Stuart Turton’s first book. I have never written book reviews in my life before, mostly because almost all the works that I read are quite famous and there are plenty of other reviews out there. Novels are important decisions that we take with our time and I, like many, choose carefully after going through a couple of book reviews. Not with this one though. The title in itself was intriguing and once I read the synopsis, I was hooked.
For once, I knew that I had to take this leap of faith into the unknown. Just like our protagonist who wakes up in the middle of a forest to the cries of a woman, with no recollection of who he is except the memory of a singular name: Anna. Identifying the source of the screams, he sees a woman running at the distance, chased by a man who shoots her before our protagonist could do anything about it. He panics his way out of the forest and hammers at the door of a Victorian era manor like a maniac when finally, a speechless butler lets him in. Can’t blame him though. Let us skip to the end of the day which ends in with our protagonist passing out at the sight of a dead, mutilated rabbit. Another day? Not quite. Another person. The protagonist wakes up in the body of a butler and goes downstairs to open the door to see a deranged man frantically knocking at the door. Speechless, he lets him in.
And thus we begin. Our protagonist has got eight days and eight people to solve the murder of Evelyn Hardcastle. On his failing to do so, his memory gets wiped and he starts again at the middle of the forest. Our protagonist has to race against time, escape a mysterious enemy determined to stop him no matter the cost, compete against other such people seeking a way out, and choose whether or not to believe a mysterious figure dressed as a medieval Plague Doctor.
I suppose you have heard enough. If you have doubts, you can ask Stuart Turton. He has written a whole book about this. Do not bother me as I am busy with The Devil and the Dark Water, Turton’s second novel.
