num_pages: 304
description: There are rules for murder mysteries. There must be a victim. A suspect. A detective. The rest is just shuffling the sequence. Expanding the permutations. Grant McAllister a professor of mathematics once sat down and worked them all out  calculating the different orders and possibilities of a mystery into seven perfect detective stories he quietly published. But that was thirty years ago. Now Grant lives in seclusion on a remote Mediterranean island counting the rest of his days.Until Julia Hart a sharp ambitious editor knocks on his door. Julia wishes to republish his book and together they must revisit those old stories: an author hiding from his past and an editor keen to understand it.But there are things in the stories that dont add up. Inconsistencies left by Grant that a sharp-eyed editor begins to suspect are more than mistakes. They may be clues and Julia finds herself with a mystery of her own to solve.
language: English
title: The Eighth Detective
publisher: Henry Holt and Co.