Fair Play

A detective calls on a shell-shocked group of friends in this thrillingly inventive novel of love and grief with a murder-mystery twist

A fiendishly designed, intricately layered, psychologically astute tale, and so elegantly written too. I''ve never read anything like it . . . a story of striking originality. I am full of admiration.

Auteur

Louise Hegarty's stories have appeared in Banshee, The Tangerine, The Stinging Fly and The Dublin Review and have been featured on BBC Radio 4. She was the inaugural winner of the Sunday Business Post/Penguin Ireland Short Story Prize and recently her story 'Now, Voyager' was produced as part of A City and A Garden, a new state-of-the-art sonic experience commissioned by Sounds from a Safe Harbour in association with Body & Soul and presented as part of Brightening Air | Coiscéim Coiligh. Her short story 'Getting the Electric', originally published in The Stinging Fly, has been optioned by Fíbín Media. Fair Play is her debut novel.

Texte du rabat

A LOCKED ROOM.
A HIDDEN LIFE.

Abigail and her brother Benjamin have always been close. To celebrate his birthday, Abigail hires a grand old house and gathers their friends together for a murder mystery party. As the night goes on, they drink too much and play games. Relationships are forged, consolidated or frayed. Someone kisses someone they shouldn't, someone else's heart is broken.

In the morning, everyone wakes up - except Benjamin.

Suddenly everything is not quite what it seems. An eminent detective arrives determined to find Benjamin's killer. The house now has a butler, a gardener and a housekeeper. This is a locked-room mystery, and everyone is a suspect.

As Abigail attempts to fathom her brother's unexpected death in a world that has been turned upside down, she begins to wonder whether perhaps the true mystery might have been his life . . .