This debut novel by Alex Parvesi, a mathematician as well as writer, takes the structure of the typical murder-mystery genre as its subject and turns this into a series of clues that are meant to solve a crime.

Basically, the story is about an editor at a press dedicated to publishing books in the crime genre, chasing down a famous author who lives on a remote Greek isle with the aim of  both seeking his permission to publish a series of short stories he wrote over 20 years ago that prove his thesis about the structure of almost envy murder-mystery (as he prefers to call them) ever written, as well as write an erudite introduction explaining his theories. The original book was called The White Murders. 

This is the frame narrative for what then becomes a series of alternating chapters where the reader is given the seven short stories the author wrote all those years ago (and which comprise the original book), interspersed with conversations between him and his new publisher. Yet, in each story, there are a series of irregularities, which when the publisher points these out, the author either dismisses or explains away abruptly. When the publisher questions him re the title, which also conjures up an actual brutal murder of a young woman named White that occurred in England decades ago, and the writer dismisses any relationship as mere coincidence, she begins to question his response, not just to this, but to all her queries…

I enjoyed this slow burn of a novel. Drawing on the tropes of the murder/mystery/crime genre, it explores it in a variety of homages – the gumshoe PI, the femme fatale, the bully cop, the dogged investigator and obvious and not so obvious suspects and victims. It bears echoes of Agatha Christie, Sophie Hannah, Anthony Horowitz’s recent works and other writers of British noir and crime. While the individual stories were in themselves quite good, the conversation chapters between were often a bit lacklustre. The book grows a bit repetitive and I was beginning to wonder where it was heading… then comes the ending. The twists towards the end not only bring the book together, but result in a very satisfying conclusion to a work that didn’t, for a while, appear to be going anywhere meaningful. 

Whereas for a while I thought I might not enjoy this book as much as I hoped, the ending made the journey, which was clever and demonstrates a real appreciation of the genre, very worthwhile.