Kathmandu, June 22 -- Wilkie Collins. Edgar Ellen Poe. Agatha Christie. Stephen King. Eight days, a thousand different combinations of experiences, and one mystery to solve. And an ambitious plot that will either have readers swooning with its cleverness, or leave them with a throbbing headache due to its convolution. Love it or hate it, you will be hard-pressed to ignore The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton. As our protagonist mouths towards the end, it is a work where there are "so many memories and secrets, so many burdens."

Its beginning is not the most original of beginnings-it is blank. A man runs through a forest assuming he has witnessed a murder, and he must save someone. Except he has no memories, and no idea ...