Review: The 7½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle

The 7½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

An extraordinary book. The feeling I've after finished this something like what we get after finishing a well written series because everything is so interconnected.

Each book has an initial sluggish phase, which is the time it feels like hard effort before the book can tow us into it, and we wade through its pages with gusto. The phase I call burn-in phase (Yeah I know you get it). For this book the burn-in phase very less compared to its length.

The writing was very good. The metaphors alone make this book worthy of reading. Never before have I seen murder mystery with this many metaphors that can help us picture and feel the environment just like the way the author intended. But the author does well to not overdo it. That's his strength. And man every other sentence comes with an intensity of an old quote by a master, and are worth quoting. Below are some of the ones I liked.

“Too little information and you're blind, too much and you're blinded.”

“We are never more ourselves than when we think people aren’t watching.”

“Nothing like a mask to reveal somebody's true nature.”

“Anger’s solid, it has weight. You can beat your fists against it. Pity’s a fog to become lost within.”

I was reminded of Agatha Christie and Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, by Ransom Riggs. I wasn't sure until half-way through the book if the extra-ordinary element is sci-fi or fantasy. Don't worry, although that element is elemental to the story, the mystery itself stands without that element. That element just sets up the platform, a recurring platform. I’d have enjoyed it more had there been an epilogue explaining some of unanswered details of that book, specifically about that element that provides the platform.

If you can take the book up on a rainy day and read it sitting beside a window for the best experience, and you'll thank me. An awesome book. A must-read especially if you’re an admirer of crime mystery or whodunit genres.

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