Grant McAllister is a retired mathematician living alone on an Mediterranean Island. Many years ago, he published a collection of mystery short stories and now editor Julia Hart wants to republish them. The Eighth Detective plays out through their discussions as McAllister relays each story including his theory of requirements for every mystery. The story that ensues is extremely clever and complex.

The Eighth Detective moves slowly, especially in the beginning, and the constant switching between stories was a bit confusing at first. It took some time for me to settle into the flow and begin to get excited about where this was all leading - to a surprising ending. I can't say much without revealing too much storyline, but I will say this is a unique, clever read that charges readers with figuring it all out. A good debut author for Pavesi. Recommended for those who love a clever Christie-like mystery.

Unfortunately I DNF’d this book. I just couldn’t relate to the characters and the story felt very pieced together and scattered to me.

This book pulls together different short mysteries. They seem distinct but they all abide by mathematical principles that drive all murder mysteries. The plot elements are the formula and without them, no real murder mystery story can exist. It does have one story coming up throughout the others to draw a common thread, but overall it still felt disjointed to me. I didn't have time to get invested in any of the short stories before they were over and the single story tying the rest together wasn't compelling enough to get me excited about the next chapter.

It took me a while to get into this, I thought it would be a hit out of the part right away, based on the premise! I liked the idea of the clues left in various stories, but found it harder to combine it all together.

I have a lot of mixed feelings about this book. I had a hard time getting into it, and the short stories were just OK to me, but the ending was really good. I was so surprised by how things came together, and I think the author did that extremely well.

The seven stories in this book are intriguing and thought provoking. Julia’s comments to Grant about the inconsistencies make the reader want to go back and reread them. I missed them all. By the third story I was trying to catch them and figure out the ending, but I wasn’t very good at it. Grant is an interesting character and his age has caused his memory to weaken.
Julia makes a great eighth detective and the ending is surprising. I did not see it coming and I love when a story does that. It makes the reader rethink everything they have read and thought throughout the book.
(Copy courtesy of Henry Holt Publishing)

I don't know what I was expecting from this one, but this book was not what I expected. However, I really enjoyed it, especially with the story within a story aspect. I wished more time would have been spent with the current timeline and the plot would have moved faster, but I still really enjoyed this one.

Thank you to the publisher for this ARC. This was a great mystery that I could not put down and highly recommend to others.

I thought the premise of this book sounded good. An ambitious editor tracks down the author of a book published thirty years ago. Grant McAllister, a mathematician came up with a set formula for murder mysteries and wrote seven perfect murder mysteries based on this formula. After the book was published, he left the world behind and retired to an isolated Mediterranean island. Now Julia Hart has found him and wants to republish his book. More than that she wants to understand the author to better understand his book. However, as they read the stories together, there are odd inconstancies that come to light and Julia begins to realize the mystery stories are hiding a bigger mystery. I enjoyed the short mystery stories. However, the whole author/editor relationship was strange and didn't make sense. The characters were not sympathetic and I had no desire to finish the book.

Unlike in most situations, the whole was most definitely not greater than the sum of its parts in The Eighth Detective.

This book was a mixed bag that exceeded my expectations in some ways and failed them miserably in others.

This was conceptually really clever, and I loved the structure. The seven short detective stories were all (save just one) really, really well executed and fun. And the discussions of the theoretical math of how to create a detective story were fascinating and thought-provoking.

Unfortunately the overarching, bigger-picture mystery that is supposed to tie all of the stories in our protagonist’s (can we really even call him that?) book-within-a-book together was a pretty big flop.

The biggest problem isn’t that it’s a cheap or poor solve per se, but that it’s all predicated on a frustrating info dump toward the end of the book. This is always irritating in a mystery, but it’s especially so in one that is set up such as to be a puzzle for the reader.

There is also zero character development for our two leads. That doesn’t generally bother me if I’m getting an otherwise good story, but it’s irksome when a piece of the ending is asking us to sympathize with one of those characters based on a thin backstory dropped on the reader at the 11th hour.

Great concept for a novel and I really enjoyed the individual book-within-a-book mysteries, but the whole thing doesn’t quite come together in the end.

Clever concept for a book. No character development unfortunately and the overall read was underwhelming. The two endings threw me a bit. The old time stories were well developed and I enjoyed those quit a bit.

A bit overhyped, but I did really enjoy this unique take on mysteries and detective fiction. I was fully invested in why Grant McAllister had chosen to live such a solitary life, and I wasn't disappointed by the twists and turns that Pavesi incorporated into the myriad of storytelling avenues. An homage to Golden Age and detective fiction lovers everywhere.
Thank you to NetGalley & Henry Holt and Co for the digital ARC.

Pretty clever British meta detective novel. Julia Hart want to republish old book that lays out the rules for detective stores – they need victim, suspect(s) and detective. The eight stories are based on various permutations of the numbers, where the author, who she has tracked to the Mediterranean island he has lived on for 30 years with publishing anything, is clearly hiding something. But is it in the errors in his stories? Very inventive, constantly challenging, a wonderful read.

This book is so good! Several mini mysteries packed into a large mystery; this book flowed nicely.

The book starts out with a mini mystery and then goes into the main storyline. An editor is attempting to get the author of these mini mysteries to publish them. The editor is reading the mini mysteries and then discussing them with the author. The main mystery surrounds the editor, Julia, and author, Grant. Julia is trying to persuade Grant to publish his long forgotten mysteries and quizzes him about each one. She believes there are some inconsistencies in each mystery and that they might be tied to an old unsolved real murder. Did Grant write these mysteries to corollate with that unsolved murder and does he remember what he wrote?

I enjoyed the mini mysteries more than the overall mystery told with the author and editor. The ending was perfect and answered all the questions I had. This was a great read!

This intriguing mystery draws the reader in immediately. Right away, the reader encounters the story of Henry, Meghan and Bunny in the first chapter. There is a murder. Who did it? The characters tell their story only for the reader to learn that Henry and Meghan are characters in a story within a story. By the time the reader realizes this, they will most likely want to know why and to know more.

The book unfolds as the story of a mathematics professor who wrote a treatise on murder mysteries. He now, somewhat mysteriously himself, lives alone on an island. He is visited there by a young editor whose employer is interested in re-publishing the mathematician’s earlier book.

From this point, readers will feel instinctively that there will be many twists and unfoldings over the course of the remaining novel. Turning the pages will feel desirable as readers race toward the end of the title.

The author promises and provides a clever and original take on the crime novel in this title. I think that it will be enjoyed by many readers of the genre.

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this title. All opinions are my own.

A very unique story line written in a unique manner that will keep your interest from the first page through the end, building suspense as you see the questions rise with each chapter. Alex Pavesi has built a mystery within a mystery that could easily puzzle readers until they catch on to the clues that are so cleverly hidden.

The book opens with an introduction to a professor's research paper from the 1930's that focused on what murder mystery readers require in their favorite books. He has written a book containing 7 short stories that are considered "perfect" examples. This is the backstory.

The story then jumps to current times when the stories are being considered for republication. A young woman meets with the professor, now a recluse on a secluded island, to review the stories with the author. As they talk, she realizes there is a very clever mystery concealed in the original stories. Readers must figure out the omissions and hints for themselves to solve the mystery. The Eighth Detective.....that's the first mystery. Can you solve them all before the reveal? Again, this is a very unique story line that has some truly crime solving puzzles to keep you engrossed in the book until the very end.

“The Eighth Detective” opens in Spain 1930, with trickery, a trick on Bunny, a trick on Megan, and a trick on the reader. This chapter is a short story, and the heart of the book follows. Julia Hart is interviewing Grant McAllister, author of “The White Murders, The Permutations of Detective Fiction. It is a book of seven classic traditional short stories that illustrate the key elements of every successful murder mysteries. A publisher has sent Hart to interview McAlister and update the stories for republication.
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The short stories are everything that readers crave in a murder mystery, all the key elements:
• A victim or group of victims who have been killed in unknown circumstances
• A suspect or suspects
• Detectives or characters who are trying to solve the crime.

This book contains the short stories that readers devour. They are all prefect examples, but there is something more. An unusual story unfolds in the chapters in between each story. Hart suspects that McAllister is evading certain issues, and she has something to hide as well.

The title implies that there are eight detectives, and there are but seven stories. So who is detective number eight? That is the critical question and I will not reveal the answer. Readers must find out for themselves I received a review copy of “The Eighth Detective” from Alex Pavesi, Henry Holt and Company, and Macmillan Publishing Group. I loved all eight stories.

What a brilliantly clever book. A mixture of little Agatha Christie type stories with a modern day thriller twist. I loved the premise and the story held up well, especially the relationship between the two main characters, the writer of the stories, much older now, and the editor who wants to republish them. She begins to question the accuracy of the stories and so do we. Great fun and well executed.

This was an inventive mystery that felt like a nice blend of Agatha Christie and Clue. I enjoyed each story and the way they were dissected by the author and the editor during their intermittent conversations. My enjoyment and interest increased the more I read and I really appreciate the thought that went into creating this unique book.

A very different kind of mystery. The story alternates between short stories written by Grant Macallister and interviews with Julia Hart, an editor looking to publish the stories as a new collection. As Julia reviews each story, inconsistencies are noted and she wonders if there is more to Grant's personal story that are being revealed in each. Most of the focus is on the short stories and very little on the characters.