10: The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle

A book by Stuart Turton

In the pages before the opening chapter of Stuart Turton’s The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle (released as The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle in the United States because of this book) there is a character list, along with a detailed map and floor plan of Blackheath House, the dilapidated Georgian mansion where the story is set. Any discerning reader would do well to study these carefully before venturing any further. They haven’t been included by accident, and it is an indication of quite how many twists and turns there are in Turton’s high-concept murder mystery that they become increasingly invaluable throughout its 505 pages. “What on earth is going on?” would be an appropriate subtitle for Turton’s debut novel.

TSDOEH (as no one is calling it) is billed on Bloomsbury’s website as: “Gosford Park meets Groundhog Day by way of Agatha Christie and Black Mirror.” That is one hell of a sell, and a potentially dangerous one. Can it possibly live up to such lofty comparisons? To Turton’s great credit, it largely does.

Our hero, such as there is one, is Aiden Bishop, who comes to in a forest inside someone else’s body shouting for a woman named Anna, despite not knowing who Anna is. He soon discovers the body he is inhabiting is that of Sebastian Bell, a doctor, who is at Blackheath for a masquerade ball thrown by Lord and Lady Hardcastle to celebrate the return of their daughter, Evelyn, from Paris. Aiden is subsequently told by a man dressed as a plague doctor (complete with beak-like porcelain mask) that to escape Blackheath he must solve an intricate murder that will take place at the ball. He has eight days to solve the murder as he will repeat the same day eight times inside a different resident of Blackheath. His memories of each “host” will remain, but if he fails to unmask the killer by the end of day eight, he will be forced to start again from scratch. For good measure, Turton throws into the mix a cast of loathsome fellow guests, a web of social dramas, and a terrifying footman bent on killing Aiden.

It’s a heady concoction, and it’s initially hard to swallow because it’s just so confusing. Stick with it, though, and it’s intoxicating. If you were to attempt to keep abreast of everything that is going on as you read it you’d have to take a similar approach to Turton’s in planning it: “Post-it notes covered my walls and a huge timeline took over my desktop.” But that would detract from the experience. It is a book to get swept up in rather than bogged down by, and there is plenty to keep the reader engaged when the threads of the plot are proving too difficult to tie together.

Turton develops an acute sense of place. Blackheath House is a terrifyingly realised setting, a sort of Downton Abbey conjured up by Edgar Allen Poe rather than Julian Fellowes. And just about everyone staying at Blackheath is an awful person, meaning Aiden is constantly hampered in his efforts by the necessity to combat his hosts’ pride/envy/wrath/sloth/greed/gluttony/lust.

Not everything works. The ending is as twisty as would be expected, but it is served up slightly undercooked. Having spent so much of the book baffled as to what was going on, I wanted more of an explanation. I basically wanted more time to revel in the fact I finally did know what was going on.

But slight missteps are to be expected in a story this audacious. Not every risk comes off, but that should not take away from what is a mightily impressive debut. In his afterword, Turton pithily summarises Agatha Christie’s oeuvre as “posh people being murdered”. TSDOEH is a posh-people-being-murdered novel, but unlike any other that you might have read before.