{"product_id":"fair-play-a-novel-isbn-9780063430426","title":"Fair Play: A Novel","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e“Louise Hegarty’s genre-splicing debut is a treat—clever, confident, and always surprising, a mystery story that ingeniously escapes the locked room of the genre to take on the biggest questions of life and death.”—Paul Murray, author of \u003cem\u003eThe Bee Sting\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eFor fans of Anthony Horowitz and Lucy Foley, a wonderfully original, genre-breaking literary debut from Ireland that’s an homage to the brilliant detective novels of the early twentieth century, a twisty modern murder mystery, and a searing exploration of grief and loss.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA group of friends gather at an Airbnb on New Year’s Eve. It is Benjamin’s birthday, and his sister Abigail is throwing him a jazz-age Murder Mystery themed party. As the night plays out, champagne is drunk, hors d’oeuvres consumed, and relationships forged, consolidated or frayed. Someone kisses the wrong person; someone else’s heart is broken.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn the morning, all of them wake up—except Benjamin.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAs Abigail attempts to wrap her mind around her brother’s death, an eminent detective arrives determined to find Benjamin's killer. In this mansion, suddenly complete with a butler, gardener and housekeeper, everyone is a suspect, and nothing is quite as it seems. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWill the culprit be revealed? And how can Abigail, now alone, piece herself back together in the wake of this loss?\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eGripping and playful, sharp and profoundly moving, \u003cem\u003eFair Play\u003c\/em\u003e plumbs the depths of the human heart while subverting one of our most popular genres.\u003c\/p\u003e | \u003cp\u003e\"A terrific debut novel. . . . It’s a witty, knowing homage to classic detective fiction, but also a deeply sensitive examination of the loneliness and confusion of grief—and a reminder that every sudden death is a mystery that can’t be fully explained. . . . A bracing meditation on the different ways we perceive death (and fiction).” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eNew York Times Book Review\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Entertainingly avant-garde. . . . Ms. Hegarty is after more than a simulation of Golden Age mystery in the 21st century, mixing in elements that suggest a work of metafiction as written by the Marx Brothers. . . . \u003cem\u003eFair Play \u003c\/em\u003eshows how the true mysteries of death and life can elude the consolations of genre fiction—even as Ms. Hegarty’s audacious concoction transcends the limitations of form. \u003cem\u003eFair play\u003c\/em\u003e, indeed.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eWall Street Journal\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“[An] engaging, ingenious Möbius strip of a book is undoubtedly the most original crime novel you’ll read all year.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Guardian\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"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. - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eEmma Stonex, author of The Lamplighters\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Dazzling, formally subversive, brimming with compassion, \u003cem\u003eFair Play \u003c\/em\u003eexplodes the conventions of a mystery in order to confront us with the genuinely mysterious. An emotional ambush of a novel, this book will delight readers—then it will haunt them.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eColin Walsh, author of Kala\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“This isn’t just a whodunit. It’s also a playful, poignant metafictional puzzle that melds genre conventions with wit and heart . . . . Hegarty’s novel is as much about storytelling and loss as it is about solving a crime. Clever nods to Golden Age mysteries, a delightfully odd detective and vividly drawn characters make this a standout debut. It’s smart, surprising and sneakily emotional; a layered literary game that both satirizes and celebrates the mystery genre while exploring the messier truths it often tries to tidy away.\" - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eSeattle Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"Oh, it's cunning, this splendid novel—like \u003cem\u003eKnives Out\u003c\/em\u003e with the blades whetted extra-sharp: a mystery to boggle the brain. But what's most surprising is how Louise Hegarty's lovely debut echoes in the heart long after the solution is revealed. Unguessable, irrepressible—and ultimately astonishing.\" - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eA.J. Finn, #1 New York Times bestselling author of End of Story and The Woman in the Window\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"Brilliant . . . . Readers, especially fans of Richard Osman, will happily go along with the plot’s many reversals and take heart in its surprisingly tender conclusion. Hegarty’s wonderfully eccentric characters, expert knowledge of classic whodunits, and ability to balance silly hijinks and serious emotional stakes mark her as a writer worth keeping tabs on. For mystery lovers, this is a joy.\" - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly (starred review)\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“[\u003cem\u003eFair Play\u003c\/em\u003e] honors the golden age of crime novels, just as it turns the genre on its head.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eNPR\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“It’s a witty, knowing homage to classic detective fiction, but also a deeply sensitive examination of the loneliness and confusion of grief—and a reminder that every sudden death is a mystery that can’t be fully explained… a bracing meditation on the different ways we perceive death (and fiction).” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"[A] fiendishly elegant jigsaw puzzle of a book . . . . Like \u003cem\u003eThe Secret History\u003c\/em\u003e, Hegarty’s debut loves to braid the brainy with the earthy . . . . When it comes to whether you’re in the hands of someone phenomenally talented here, who has constructed something entirely original, there’s no mystery.\" \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eSunday Times (London)\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Hegarty follows the conventions of all the great traditional mysteries . . . and then twists them. \u003ci\u003eFair Play\u003c\/i\u003e is set in a rural Irish country home, an Airbnb rented by a group of friends to celebrate New Year’s Eve with a murder-mystery theme party. When a guest is found dead the next morning, the friends are thrown into an investigation that references all the classic detective plot devices in such a twisty way that you’ll discover there are many more questions (and, eventually, answers) than you first realized.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eElle, \"Best Mysteries \u0026amp; Thrillers of 2025\"\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“I’ve been searching for a book that conjures the spirit of one of my absolute favorite movies\u003cem\u003e Clue\u003c\/em\u003e, and this might be the one to do it: a murder mystery party where suspects play predetermined archetypes, an Airbnb likely full of hidden rooms not featured on the listing (and perhaps a lurking host)—but also real gravitas about grief and loss juxtaposed with solving a murder in real-time? Now that’s more compelling than any clue.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003ePaste Magazine, “The Most Anticipated Mystery and Thriller Books of 2025”\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e “Readers of both classic mysteries and literary fiction will enjoy this intermingling of the two in Louise Hegarty’s first novel, \u003cem\u003eFair Play\u003c\/em\u003e, an utterly fresh approach to the standard whodunit that adds emotional heft to playful pastiche . . . . Hagerty skillfully manipulates the genre, calling attention to the reader's expectations and subverting familiar tropes in the service of nuanced storytelling. \u003cem\u003eFair Play \u003c\/em\u003eis a thoroughly satisfying and thought-provoking read . . .\u003cstrong\u003e \u003c\/strong\u003eLouise Hegarty’s debut novel is a clever approach to the drawing-room mystery, satirical and thought-provoking.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eShelf Awareness\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“A clever tale of two halves that turns crime genre on its head.\" - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eIrish Independent\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"\u003cem\u003eFair Play \u003c\/em\u003eacts as both witty deconstruction of a genre and portrait of unbearable grief and loss.\" - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eFinancial Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Louise Hegarty’s genre-splicing debut is a treat—clever, confident, and always surprising, a mystery story that ingeniously escapes the locked room of the genre to take on the biggest questions of life and death.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003ePaul Murray, author of The Bee Sting\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Living in Ireland, we get used to great books being produced by debut authors. But every now and then a debut comes along that stands out from the pack. This year that book is \u003cem\u003eFair Play\u003c\/em\u003e, the first novel by Cork author Louise Hegarty.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eIrish Examiner\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“On the mystery side, \u003cem\u003eFair Play\u003c\/em\u003e by Louise Hegarty is f— amazing . . . . It’s a really modern, interesting, bizarre take on the murder mystery . . . . It’s brilliant.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eLos Angeles Times Book Club Newsletter\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“The surreal gamesmanship [Hegarty] springs forward with her construction of \u003cem\u003eFair Play\u003c\/em\u003e is unlike anything I have encountered in mystery fiction, mixing elements of both meta and the bizarre in a story that was never really about a murder. Instead, it is one of the most brilliant looks at life and death that I have ever read.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eBook Reporter\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"An ingenious puzzle-box of a novel, where nothing is solved but everything is discovered. Louise Hegarty plays—often hilariously, always knowingly—with the forms and conventions of detective fiction, constantly pulling the rug from under the reader in a manner that echoes, heart-wrenchingly, the rug-pull at the heart of it all. Sad, funny, clever, engrossing; this is a wonderful debut.\" - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eJon McGregor, author of Reservoir 13\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"With each turn of a page the plot thickens masterfully and the form twists like a wicked game. Get to the Louise Hegarty party early, she’s brilliant.\" - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eJodie Harsh, author of You Had to Be There\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“A current of electricity runs through every Louise Hegarty character, concept and sentence;\u003cem\u003e Fair Play\u003c\/em\u003e is ambitious and unpredictable and riotous and at the same time full of meaning and compassion. It's a triumph.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eLisa McInerney, author of The Glorious Heresies\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Each time you think you’ve got the measure of this clever and immensely readable debut, it turns around at the door, looks you in the eye, and offers up one more twist, one more audacious shattering of genre and convention that you never saw coming.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eAndrew McMillan, author of Pity\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“I loved it. Catastrophic grief explored through a meta murder mystery romp? Yes please! I found \u003cem\u003eFair Play\u003c\/em\u003e intriguing, smart, fun, and devastatingly poignant, and I shall now read everything Louise Hegarty ever writes.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eEffie Black, author of In Defence of The Act\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"A smart, intricately plotted novel.\" - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eiNews\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Harper","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44890894631141,"sku":"NP9780063430426","price":19.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780063430426.jpg?v=1730234291","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/fair-play-a-novel-isbn-9780063430426","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}