DEDUCTIVE REASONING

di PAWAN BHATIA (Autore)

PAWAN BHATIA, 2026

Deductive Reasoning by Pawan Bhatia is a philosophical detective novel about the limits of logic, certainty, and human understanding. Dr. Osric Halloran is a brilliant consultant famous for reconstructing impossible crimes through airtight deductive sequences. When philosophy professor Beatrix Linden is found dead in a sealed library room beside a formally valid but absurd proof—"Therefore, the victim is still alive"—Halloran recognizes the scene as both a puzzle and a personal challenge. More victims follow: prosecutor Aldous Merrick, shot in a locked garage, and forensic pathologist Priyanka Naidoo, killed in her office. Each crime scene contains a flawed syllogism parodying Halloran's method, each targeting someone connected to his celebrated cases. Detective Imogen Pryce, skeptical of consultants after a wrongful conviction she helped produce, becomes Halloran's liaison and moral counterweight. She trusts instinct; he trusts proof. As they investigate, Halloran confronts his private notebook of "unresolved residues"—cases where his deductions were flawless yet something felt wrong. He learns the killer has read this notebook and is exploiting his hidden doubts. Journalist Odalys Fenwick uncovers the culprit: Edmund Thackeray, a former student whose brilliant critique of Halloran's method was suppressed and erased by his mentor six years earlier. Thackeray became "the Examiner," staging murders as a curriculum to force Halloran to admit deduction is insufficient. The climax finds Halloran abducted and asked to complete a final syllogism proving his own failure. He refuses, saying "I do not know"—the first honest premise he has ever offered. Thackeray is arrested, and Halloran gradually transforms: he dismantles his wall of timelines, replaces sequences with a web of human consequences, visits Thackeray in prison, and arranges publication of the suppressed paper under both their names. The novel closes with Halloran learning to live with uncertainty, accepting an invitation from Pryce's daughter to watch a meteor shower—an unresolved residue, patient and unexplained, at the edge of the light.

• Autore: PAWAN BHATIA
• Anno edizione: 2026
• Editore: PAWAN BHATIA
• Formato: EPUB2 con DRMFREE
• Lingua: Inglese
• Compatibilità: Tutti i dispositivi (eccetto Kindle)
• Layout: Reflowable
• EAN: 9798237292695