Fair Play

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What to expect

This is a murder mystery.
This is a story about love.
Or is it? . . .

'A treat . . . Takes on the biggest questions of life and death' – Paul Murray, author of The Bee Sting

‘Dazzling' – Colin Walsh, author of Kala
‘Brilliant' – The Times
‘Ingenious’ – The Telegraph
'Terrific' – The New York Times
'Heartbreaking' – The Guardian
‘Sally Rooney meets The Secret History’ – The Sunday Times

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 . . .

Louise Hegarty's Fair Play is the puzzle-box story that brilliantly lays bare the real truth of life – the terrifying mystery of grief.

Critics Review

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 The Bee Sting
As soon as I finished this fiendishly elegant jigsaw puzzle of a book, I dashed back and scoured its pages trying to find if Hegarty had planted a glinting, hidden clue somewhere to unlock the mystery
The Sunday Times
A brilliant dissection of the murder mystery format . . . Both funny and moving, it’s a really impressive debut
The Times, 'Best Books of 2025 So Far'
Dazzling, formally subversive, brimming with compassion, Fair Play explodes 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
Colin Walsh, author of Kala
It takes skill, and even a sense of anarchy, to produce a novel as funny, baffling and occasionally moving as Fair Play
The Irish Times
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.
Emma Stonex, author of The Lamplighters
An ingenious puzzle-box of a novel . . . Sad, funny, clever, engrossing; this is a wonderful debut.
Jon McGregor, author of Reservoir 13
Undoubtedly the most original crime novel you’ll read all year
The Guardian
[An] ingenious debut novel
The Telegraph
A witty, knowing homage to classic detective fiction, but also a deeply sensitive examination of the loneliness and confusion of grief
The New York Times
Fair Play is ambitious and unpredictable and riotous and at the same time full of meaning and compassion. It's a triumph
Lisa McInerney, author of The Glorious Heresies
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
Jodie Harsh, author of You Had To Be There
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
Andrew McMillan, author of Pity
A smart, intricately plotted novel
iNews
Acts as both witty deconstruction of a genre and portrait of unbearable grief and loss
Financial Times
I loved it . . . intriguing, smart, fun, and devastatingly poignant . . . I shall now read everything Louise Hegarty ever writes
Effie Black, author of In Defence of the Act
In crime novels, a death is often merely the inciting incident. Murder gets the party started, so to speak. Grief, the monster in the shadows that keeps you awake at night, rarely features. That Louise Hegarty has not only upended the genre, but combined this with a moving exploration of loss, makes this inventive debut all the more impressive
Irish Independent
Louise Hegarty is such a talented writer. In Fair Play, she delivers a Rubik's Cube of a debut novel, both an expert evocation of a Golden Age mystery and something else entirely. I was moved and surprised and I can't wait to see what she does next
Catherine Kirwan, author of Cruel Deeds
A fantastical locked room mystery
PA Review
Fair Play shows how the true mysteries of death and life can elude the consolations of genre fiction . . . Fair play, indeed
The Wall street Journal
Amazing . . . a really modern, interesting, bizarre take on the murder mystery . . . It’s brilliant
LA Times

User Reviews

Book 4.0
Narration 4.2
4.0
3.0
An interesting book with a novel structure that kept me interested till the surprising or sudden end. Narration (or was it the writing?) was not flawless - some odd / mispronounced words were slightly irritating.
jo tait 05/08/2025
5.0
5.0
Brilliant! One of the most clever, witty, playful and entertaining books I've ever read/heard. It's a powerful portrayal of grief as well as a creative, funny deconstruction of the traditional murder mystery with lots of recognisable references to the classics. And all enhanced by superb narration. Would give it more than five stars if I could.
jackdor 04/08/2025
4.0
4.0
Between 3 & 4 for me. This was unexpectedly emotional and tender as I was expecting a murder mystery, but I did feel like the detective bits could have been swifter, especially once you understood what was happening. Cleverly done though and some really spot-on reflections of grief around suicide.
marieiram 22/05/2025
3.0
5.0
Tdk 26/04/2025

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