The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle

The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle

UK 2018 cover
Author	Stuart Turton
Publisher	Raven Books
Publication date	8 February 2018
Pages	528
ISBN	978-1408889565

The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle (published in United States as The 7½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle) is a novel by Stuart Turton which won the Best First Novel prize in the 2018 Costa Book Awards and reached number one on The Saturday Times Bestseller list and number five on The Sunday Times Bestseller list.

It was published in the UK by Raven Books on 8 February 2018 (ISBN 978-1408889565) and in the US by Sourcebooks Landmark on 28 September 2018 (ISBN 978-1492657965) It has been translated into 28 languages, sold over 200,000 copies in the UK, and television rights have been optioned. In December 2020, Netflix announced that a seven-episode series was in production in the UK. In January 2023, Netflix scrapped the project.

Plot

At the start of the book, Aiden Bishop awakes in a forest, suffering from memory loss, and calling for someone named Anna. He doesn't remember his own name. He finds his way to a manor, where associates tell him that he is a doctor called Sebastian Bell who is attending a party thrown by the Hardcastles, the family of Blackheath Manor. After he falls asleep that night, he awakes to find himself in the body of the butler, and it is the morning of the previous day.

He learns that he has eight days, and inhabits eight different party guests, or “hosts,” to solve the murder of Evelyn Hardcastle, which will take place at 11pm at the party that evening. He is only allowed to leave Blackheath once he finds the killer. If he is unable to solve the mystery in the eight allocated days, the process will restart and he will awake again in the body of Sebastian Bell with his memory wiped. He also learns that there are two other people competing to find out the murderer, and that only one person will be permitted to leave Blackheath.

Characters

• Aiden Bishop: the protagonist, who has no memory of his past life or his reason for being at Blackheath. He awakens every day in the body of a different Blackheath guest and quickly learns that he must solve the murder of Evelyn Hardcastle in eight days, or else he will be trapped at Blackheath for another time loop.
• Annabelle "Anna" Caulker: a young maid in Blackheath who becomes Aiden's ally once they realize that they are both trapped in the same loop and that only one of them can escape unless they work together. Anna possesses a book filled with information about Aiden's hosts and what events must be fulfilled to preserve the time loop, but unlike him, she lives the day only once and has only one host.
• Daniel Coleridge: a professional gambler with mysterious loyalties and seemingly unlimited sources of information throughout Blackheath.
• The Plague Doctor: an enigmatic figure who wears a plague doctor costume and appears at intervals to give Aiden information about Blackheath and his strange predicament. He gives little indication about his identity but is seemingly sympathetic to Aiden and highly involved with the puzzle of the time loop.
• Evelyn Hardcastle: the only daughter of the Hardcastles who is murdered every night of the time loop at 11 PM under extremely mysterious circumstances. Though she interacts very little with Aiden, he becomes obsessed with solving her murder because of her brief kindness to him.
• Sebastian Bell: Aiden's first host and a cowardly medical doctor who has secretly been selling laudanum to the Blackheath guests.
• Roger Collins: Aiden's second host and the crippled, disfigured butler of Blackheath who spends most of the novel incapacitated after he is viciously attacked by Gregory Gold.
• Donald Davies: Aiden's third host and the foppish, childish younger brother of Grace Davies who spends the majority of the novel stranded on the road between Blackheath and the nearby village.
• Lord Cecil Ravencourt: Aiden's fourth host and a cunning banker who is engaged to Evelyn Hardcastle against her will as punishment for her perceived involvement in her brother's death.
• Jonathan Derby: Aiden's fifth host, Millicent Derby's son, and an irresponsible serial rapist whose strong-willed personality is the first that Aiden has difficulty coping with.
• Edward Dance: Aiden's sixth host and one of the Hardcastle family's solicitors whose advancing age and decreasing health is a scourge to Aiden as he tries to unravel the mystery.
• Jim Rashton: Aiden's seventh host and a constable in the police force who provides most of the investigative work required to solve Evelyn Hardcastle's murder.
• Gregory Gold: Aiden's final host and an artist in residence at Blackheath whose strange actions puzzle Aiden until he finally arrives at the eighth day.
• Michael Hardcastle: the only living son of the Hardcastles who is completely devoted to his sister Evelyn and mostly popular at Blackheath.
• Charles Cunningham: Ravencourt's clever valet who has secretive connections to the Hardcastles and a reputation that allows him to stay hidden within the mysteries of Blackheath.
• Dr. Richard "Dickie" Acker: a medical doctor and Sebastian Bell's partner in an illegal laudanum business who is constantly on edge for fear of being discovered.
• Ted Stanwin: a former gamekeeper to the Hardcastles and now a wealthy landowner who runs a highly profitable blackmail business after witnessing the murder of Thomas Hardcastle.
• The Footman: a terrifying, bloodthirsty murderer who knows more about Aiden's predicament than Aiden does originally. He kills several of Aiden's hosts as Aiden struggles to figure out the Footman's role in the time loop.
• Millicent Derby: Jonathan Derby's mother and an old friend of the Hardcastles from their younger days at Blackheath.
• Grace Davies: Donald Davies's older sister and the lover of Jim Rashton.
• Madeline Aubert: Evelyn Hardcastle's French maid who delivered a message to Sebastian Bell the night before.
• Lucy Harper: the primary maid in Blackheath who treats Roger Collins with kindness but is mistreated by Ted Stanwin.
• Mrs. Drudge: the intimidating long-time cook at Blackheath.
• Peter Hardcastle: the lord of Blackheath, the husband of Helena Hardcastle, and the supposed father of Evelyn, Thomas, and Michael who is in league with Daniel Coleridge's planned blackmail maneuver.
• Phillip Sutcliffe: one of Edward Dance's soliciting partners and a friend of Peter Hardcastle.
• Christopher Pettigrew: one of Edward Dance's soliciting partners and a friend of Peter Hardcastle.
• Clifford Herrington: a retired naval officer and friend of Peter Hardcastle.
• Alf Miller: the long-time stable master.
• Helena Hardcastle: The lady of Blackheath, the wife of Peter Hardcastle, and the mother of Evelyn, Thomas, and Michael who remains absent for almost the entire novel.
• Felicity Maddox: a friend of Evelyn Hardcastle who is somehow involved in her murder but whom Aiden cannot locate throughout the novel.
• Keith Parker: a stable boy who inexplicably went missing at the same time Thomas Hardcastle was murdered.
• Thomas Hardcastle: the Hardcastle son who was apparently murdered by Charlie Carver ten years before.
• Charlie Carver: a former groundskeeper at Blackheath who was accused and executed for Thomas Hardcastle's murder.
• Silver Tear: a second mysterious figure in a plague doctor costume who appears at Blackheath with unknown intentions and seems set on foiling Aiden's plans.

Structure

The novel has similar characteristics to an Agatha Christie novel, with precise clues scattered in (almost) every chapter and a murderer to be identified. The endpapers of the book show a detailed plan of the villa and the lands around it; there is also a list of all the characters. It is structured in sixty chapters.

When the identity of the protagonist changes, the day on which it takes place is recorded at the beginning of the chapter. The incarnations are:

• day one: Sebastian Bell
• day two: Roger Collins
• day three: Donald Davies
• day four: Lord Cecil Ravencourt
• day five: Jonathan Derby
• day six: Edward Dance
• day seven: Jim Rashton
• day eight: Gregory Gold

Although the novel refers to different days (first, second, etc), the day in which the plot takes place is always the same: only the protagonist, changing identity, has the feeling of different days, so he has the opportunity to remember what he did in the shoes of his previous incarnations and to make different choices, changing the course of events. It is not explained how the protagonist can pass from one incarnation to another: it is said that the reconstruction of the mansion and of the Hardcastle crimes are a sort of virtual prison where the perpetrators of very serious crimes are imprisoned, but that the protagonist ended up there of his own free will for a precise reason (which he will have to discover, since his memory becomes weaker every time it overlaps with that of the characters whose personalities he takes possession of). The Plague Doctor, who is evidently part of the "staff" of the virtual prison, explains to him that there are thousands of other similar prisons, with different "scripts" but always focused on solving puzzles. The person who solves the riddle of his or her prison will be granted freedom; the other two competitors will have their memories erased and repeat the same day in a loop. It is also mentioned that the cycle has been repeating for decades and that the order of Bishop's incarnations has been changed several times. It is up to the reader to imagine an explanation, from the purely dreamlike/fantastic to the dystopian/fantasy-scientific.

US 2018 cover

Title

According to Turton, the novel's title was changed in America since it was similar to the previously published The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo.

Reception

The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle reached number one on The Saturday Times Bestseller list and number five on The Sunday Times Bestseller list, earning critical acclaim.

The Guardian's review said "With time loops, body swaps and a psychopathic footman, this is a dazzling take on the murder mystery", while The Times said "The plot of this complex, fascinating and bewildering murder-mystery is impossible to summarise" and called it "an astonishingly polished debut".

Awards

The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle won the Best First Novel prize in the 2018 Costa Book Awards and Best Novel in the 2018 Books Are My Bag Readers' Awards, as voted for by booksellers. In the same year, it was shortlisted for a New Writers' Award at the Specsavers National Book Awards, Debut of the Year at The British Book Awards, and longlisted for a New Blood Dagger and Gold Dagger at the CWA Awards. Val McDermid selected Stuart Turton, author of The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle, to appear on her prestigious New Blood panel at the Theakstons Old Peculiar Crime Writing Festival. In 2019, it was shortlisted for Best Debut Novel at the Strand Magazine Critics Awards and longlisted for The Glass Bell Award. In 2021, the Japanese edition of the novel, translated by Kazuyo Misumi and published in 2019, was shortlisted for the Best Translated Honkaku Mystery of the Decade (2010-2019).

Adaptation

In December 2020 it was announced that Netflix had bought the rights to a seven-part series adaptation of the novel produced by House Productions, who had acquired the television rights in 2018, to be written by Sophie Petzal. On January 17, 2023, it was reported that after two years of development, Netflix had cancelled the planned series.