The Eighth Detective

 by Alex Pavesi

This is one of the most original mystery books I have ever read.  I really enjoyed it.

The story starts with a woman who is supposedly an Editor for a small mystery book publisher who wants to meet the author of a mystery book called the White Murders that was published 20 years before.  She says her company wants to publish the book.

The author is reclusive, living on a Greek Island.  He was a math prof who wrote a book about the mathematical elements of mystery stories. He asks the woman to read each of the stories aloud to him.  She does so.  One chapter will be the story, the next chapter will be their discussion of elements of the story.  I have to say each of the stories is quite unique.  It starts off with one victim and one murderer, a victim and several murderers, a story where the detective is actually the murderer... etc

The woman wants to know if the author named the book after a famous murder of a woman named White, which occurred around the time that the book was self-published.  The author denies any connection.

The lady points out some inconsistencies in the stories.  The author replies that he put these in to tease his readers.  As the stories go along the woman seems to be getting suspicious.  In the end we find out the woman is not really an Editor, she has come to see the author because she believes he was her father.  She became suspicious of the man she was speaking to and starts revising parts of the stories or the endings.  When he doesn't confront her about this she challenges him that he is not really the author.  The man then admits that he was the author's lover.  The author had been wearing the man's jacket when he was killed when the edge of a cliff collapsed under him.  The village assumed the author's lover had died which was fine with the lover as he took on the persona and continued to live of the pension of the author/mathematician.

It then comes out that the mathematician did not write the stories.  The murder victim, Miss White, had come to the prof asking his feedback on her stories.  He murdered her and claimed the stories were his own.

This was an intriguing book, both the mystery stories themselves and the way the story developed.  I look forward to reading other books by this author.