When Groundhog Day is a murder mystery

The 7½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle, Goodreads, https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1506896221i/36337550.jpg Accessed 1 M. 2025.

Imagine a world. Now throw out everything you think you know about it. That is the world the 7½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle is set in. In classic mysterious style, the main character, Aiden Bishop, finds himself in a forest in the dark of the morning, his memory bereft save for the name of Anna. However, he soon realizes that he is quite literally not himself; his consciousness has been inserted into the body of Dr. Sebastian Bell. He is a guest at Blackheath, a decrepid manor owned by the Hardcastles. After returning to Blackheath after many years away, Lady Helena Hardcastle has thrown a party and invited many old aquaintances back seemingly just for a routine celebration. It is eventually revealed that every night, at 11:00pm Evelyn Hardcastle, the daughter of Helena and Peter Hardcastle, will be murdered until Aiden can figure out who the killer is and break the cycle.

Every day, Aiden wakes up inside a different person, reliving the exact* same day eight times until he either runs through all the eight "hosts" and has not found the killer, at which point the cycle repeats, or he succeeds. I put a star next to exact, but I will get there. A figure with a porcelain plague doctor mask informs him that if he can bring him the name of the killer before Evelyn is murdered on the final day, he will free Aiden from Blackheath. To complicate matters for him, Aiden is also told that there are two others trying to unravel the mystery, but only one can escape Blackheath. One is Anna, who he believes is a friend, and the other The Footman, who he is sure is an enemy and is definitely out to get them both, but not without messing with them first. Throughout the novel the main character takes on many different hosts, hatches some devious and some less devious plans (depending on the intellect of his host), but as the story goes on, more and more layers are uncovered leaving him frantically searching for a way to both save Evelyn and escape from Blackheath, while also trying to find a way to save Anna as well.

The setting of the story has a large impact on how it plays out. Although not explicitly stated, the time period of the novel seems to be around the early 1900s. The stable master of Blackheath has an automobile, but one that is "Coughing and shuddering as if afflicted by some terrible disease." (Turton 78) Despite having automobiles, the majority of people still seem to use horses and carriages, so this along with the uninpressive state of the car leads me to believe that the story is still in the early days of cars. The location is also not explicityly stated, but as the author is british, it is likely set in a british forest, although it could make sense in pretty much anywhere with a high society. Although the rapid and sometimes out of order body-switching of the main character is confusing at first, it becomes fairly easy to understand after a little bit, especially once you get the hang of things not occurring chronologically. This is because he is living the same day many different times, and he switches bodies when they sleep or are unconscious, so not every "version" of the main character is happening at the same time.

As the story goes on, more and more characters are added, and every one comes with their own complex stories and personalities and importance. Like many aspects of this book, the very high amount of characters (there are like 20 main important characters) is initially very confusing, but they are presented in a way that is not just info/character dumping which forces you to memorize a bunch of names and stuff immediately. Instead it gradually introduces you to each character giving you enough time to understand and sort the characters, but without wasting too much time in the book (although it is 458 pages). As a whodunit, especially an elaborate one, the novel keeps your mind running, evaluating the possibilities and forming theories and hypotheses about how all the pieces fit together.

Overall, the 7½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle is a very complex and engaging mystery not of the ordinary sort. As someone who especially enjoys complex and intricate stories with many pieces that keep your mind working, I enjoyed this book, but if you are someone who is just looking for a simple and relaxing read, this is probably not it. If not, the way that the author ties together every little detail is very careful and impressive, and likely took extraordinary amounts of planning to pull off. A quote from the beginning of the novel summarizes the book well (both the novel itself and how the reader will feel): "How lost do you have to be to let the devil lead you home? This lost, I decide. Precisely this lost." (Turton 5)

Works Cited

Turton, Stuart. The 7 ½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle. Raven Books, 2018.