Abigail’s murder mystery party turns into a real-life murder investigation in this genre-splicing, thought-provoking, character-driven novel from Louise Hegarty.

The premise is pretty simple enough. We meet Abigail, clearly neurotically obsessed over the next instalment of the murder mystery parties she hosts for her friends, with this one being particularly important as it coincides with her brother Benjamin’s birthday. The novel quickly falls into numerous murder mystery tropes, from the spacious country mansion the group finds themselves in, through to the cast of characters who arrive, from the obnoxious and insecure Declan, through to the oddly tense couple Cormac and Olivia.

It is only once Benjamin fails to wake up one morning, found dead in bed, in a locked room, that things start to unravel for the characters, and especially sister Abigail too. This is where the novel takes an intriguing turn, with all characters falling under the suspicious gaze of the arriving Detective Auguste Bell, whose astute, analytical approach to detective work is typical of TV and fiction sleuths, and something Abigail clearly aspires to be.

Without giving too much away about where the novel then twists and turns, it is safe to say that the climax of the novel is one that will divide readers, especially those who go into this murder mystery novel with certain expectations. It is, though, an ending that perhaps offers a more poignant and moving finish to this type of story than one might expect. Hegarty’s structure runs the risk of getting a little too repetitive in some clever but obvious attempts to move the reader in a certain direction during the second half of the novel, but there is enough in Abigail’s character, even if the rest end up a little too hollow, to keep things moving steadily.

This is not your conventional murder mystery story, but it is one that, read in the right way, has the potential to be far more profound than you might initially deduce.