Magpie Murders

The META!!!! Even as a relative newbie to the murder mystery genre, this was engrossing on a number of levels, in how it plays with the tropes of,  existing canon of, and popular perceptions of, the murder mystery genre.
 I'm realizing that the divide between a cozy murder mystery and this type of more classic murder mystery is you don't have the same assurance that there's a pleasant detective-type and a warm support group who are automatically above suspicion.
 You have to read this type of murder mystery for the puzzle, not the people, because as basically everybody is a suspect, you don't get much time with or good feelings about any one character - even if they're not the murderer, their secrets are being laid bare in the course of the investigation and they're understandably disgruntled and defensive about being investigated; even the detective, paraphrasing the book, is an outsider, and the detective's support group are little more than flunkies. 
It's not as clear cut a case of ‘everyone's unlikeable' as seems to be the formula in the thrillers I encountered prior to realizing that's not a genre for me, but it does mean that I'll probably always lean towards cozy mysteries, and only be lured back to classic murder mysteries by the promise of a good puzzle, because that's what made this book.
 I am the first to label myself extremely gullible so I suppose my proclamations of masterful mystery should be considered subjective, but I truly had a great time with the last fifty pages. 
To that end, patience is required for this read. The book within the book aspect is laid out in a way I haven't encountered before, such that in this case you read a few pages of one, most of the other, and then switch back, and are left after 200 pages of buildup, with a cliffhanger for another 200 pages.
And yet, yes, I definitely will be reading the next book in this series. 

⚠️ Loved one with dementia, classism, ableism, xenophobia, fatphobia, homophobia, child abuse