I was a little worried I wasn't going to be able to keep up with the characters, but I had no problem at all due to exquisite writing, fully developed characters and a plot that was so strong I was sad when I finished it.

Penny and Hawke are engrossing and compelling and I wish there were more to read.

Christopher Brookmyre’s “The Cracked Mirror” is a twisted masterpiece that deserves a standing ovation. Buckle up, because this one throws you into a whirlwind of seemingly disparate plots that converge in a way that’s both shocking and delightful.

On one hand, we meet Penny, a sharp-as-a-tack investigator with a keen eye for detail, reminiscent of Agatha Christie’s iconic Miss Marple. She’s investigating a suspicious suicide in a seemingly idyllic Scottish village. On the other coast, we have Johnny, a jaded Hollywood detective with a dark past, tackling a similar case – a washed-up screenwriter found dead in his mansion.

Brookmyre weaves these seemingly separate narratives, building suspense with each chapter. The quirky charm of Penny’s small-town world clashes brilliantly with the gritty underbelly of Johnny’s Los Angeles. Just when you think you have a handle on things, the two cases collide in a way that’s both hilarious and mind-blowing.

But “The Cracked Mirror” doesn’t stop there. The story takes a dramatic pivot, venturing into territory I never saw coming. This unexpected twist elevates the novel from a classic whodunnit to a thought-provoking exploration of reality and perception. Brookmyre’s masterful writing keeps you guessing until the very last page, leaving you both satisfied and wanting more.

This is a novel that defies categorization. It’s a witty murder mystery, a heart-pounding thriller, and a mind-bending exploration of human consciousness, all rolled into one. Brookmyre’s characters are unforgettable, the dialogue is sharp and witty, and the plot twists will leave you speechless.

If you’re looking for a unique and unforgettable reading experience, “The Cracked Mirror” is a must-read.

Brookmyre is one of my favourite authors and he genuinely never disappoints.....and this book is no different.

Laced with his trademark dark humour this was a brilliant novel which interweaves to brilliant, but very different, characters that will stay with me for a long time

A really good mix up of detectives and all wrapped up in a great story. Really good read and well worth the time. Am going to see what other books the author is written.

After the death of a screen writer in LA, Johnny is suspended from duty as a police office. Just returned from holiday, Penny, who is well known for solving murders in her home town, now works part time in the local library. Suddenly their worlds collide when they are both invited to a society wedding and neither knows who is paying for their accommodation or who they families involved are apart from being rich.
Tracking down the partner of the screen writer seems to be priority until the bride commits suicide and the questions then arise as to why?
Thrown together to get answers is a learning curve for both, can they solve a series of murders that seem to be linked..........the answer may not be what you think................

The Cracked Mirror by Chris Brookmyre is the meeting of a Miss Marple type investigator and a hardened LAPD homicide detective, who came together to find out who killed the dead writer and also get a mysterious invitation to a wedding. Johnny Hawke and Penny Coyne are the two main characters in this magnificent tale of two mismatched investigators coming together to solve the mystery.
At times the storyline becomes farcical but it is always very entertaining and I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book.
Highly recommended

Thank you to the author, publishers Abacus and NetGalley UK for access to this as an advance reader’s ebook. This is an honest and voluntary review.

Two investigators, two entirely different styles, one interlinked mystery. Johnny Hawkes, an American cop who’s willing to break rules to uphold the law, meets Penny Coyne the genteel Scottish librarian who helps the police solve crimes in her seemingly peaceful Perthshire village.

It’s difficult to describe the plot without giving things away, but suffice it to say a lesser writer would have struggled to get me to suspend my disbelief until the reveal came. But, Chris Brookmyre handles the complexities and characters brilliantly making it a compelling read even while I was trying to figure out what was really going on.

Chris Brookmyre is known for his originality and The Cracked Mirror is probably even more unique than his last dozen or so novels. Even reading the blurb up front and thus having a semblance of expectations in advance did not set me up for this! No secret we have an LA homicide detective and a Little Old Lady from Scotland fronting this mystery, but how they're going to be brought together is very puzzling for a stretch and a half; I admit to scratching my head a few times at this scenario. But it's a Chris Brookmyre novel so convention is blown away - wheels within wheels, and to an extent later on in the novel I was reminded somewhat of a previous novel, Bedlam, in that pretty much anything can happen if belief can be suspended. The pointers are there but I was so I wrapped up with 'Russian dolls' and absorbed with the intricacies that I missed a good many of them - and this makes for a nod of recognition at a job extremely well done!

So, a mystery, some sci-fi, definitely quirky, and I suspect existing fans will lap this up. Mystery fans may not like the sci-fi, whilst sci-fi fans will want more but, either way, this is definitely a cracking thriller.

Many thanks to NetGalley, Little Brown Book Group and Chris Brookmyre for my ARC of 'The Cracked Mirror' in return for an honest review.

I have not read a Chris Brookmyre novel and this was an entertaining read with many twists and turns which I found thoroughly enjoyable.

A dead writer and a wedding invitation bring together two unlikely sleuths: Penny Cone and Johnny Hawke.

Recommended.

A rough around the edges LA cop is sent to check out a suicide, he thinks it doesn't smell right and investigates. but things go wrong and his partner dies. He's suspended, but takes off to Scotland. The screenwriting partner of the suicide in LA is attending a wedding there but on the morning of the wedding the bride commits suicide. Again it doesn't sit right and he meets up with Penny a gentle old lady with Miss Marple written all over her. As they start to investigate the deaths they narrowly avoid being shot down by rogue police. They head back to LA to follow the scent and an action packed thriller unfolds. The plot is very clever think Agatha Christie meets Raymond Chandler meets The Truman Show. You won't know what's real and what's not. Brilliant

I love the Ambrose Parry Books so was quite looking forward to diving into this one – although from the blurb I did realise that it was going to be conceptually a little more complicated!

For me in the end, this is what pulled me out of the story a little bit. I do like a twist but sometimes when it feels like an author is showing off the fact that they are putting in clever structure doesn’t always work for me, I think I might just be a bit old-fashioned.

I love the combination of the two detective types Being forced together and his style is readable and the characters interesting.

It’s very much a case of right Book, wrong reader in that it didn’t hit just quite right for me by the end.

There are totally some friends I would recommend this to who are a big fan of high Concept stories that will get a real kick out of the last quarter of this book!

How is it possible that two detective's, from very different backgrounds, end up meeting?
That possibly, their separate cases, are strangely entwined?

Penny lives in Glen Cluthar in Perthshire, Scotland.
When the body of Mr Gault is found in the confessional booth of Saint Bride’s church, we follow Penny, a Miss Marple type character, as she investigates.

Lieutenant Johnny Hawke lives in LA. He knows he has flipped his car the previous day but everything is a bit of a blur, he seems to be missing memories. After being picked up by his new partner, his previous partners haven’t faired to well, they detour to bring in a sneaky crook before heading back to the station. The boss, who is not happy with Johnny’s style of police work, given him a new case, a suicide at a movie studio and that he needs to keep it quiet.

Penny gets an invitation to a wedding at Crathie Hall, but for the life of her she can’t seem to remember who these people are.

Johnny chases a suspect, without his boss’s knowledge, to Scotland. The suspect is supposed to be staying at Crathie Hall.

I have really enjoyed this book. It’s got well developed characters, the story twists and turns, and you will never quite know where it’s leading you until it jumps out and goes ‘Ta da!’.

Thanks to Little Brown Book Group and NetGalley for this ARC

#thecrackedmirror #littlebrownbookgroup #netgalley

A truly ambitious novel which brings two classic detectives a hardboiled LA cop and sweet village dwelling librarian with a knack for solving crime together to pool their brains and techniques to solve a murder in a Scottish country house. I admit I struggled to get through this book which was 4986 pages in my kindle app and I only became engaged in the last 1000 pages! I had to use the search function to recall all the characters. I think it will reward a second reading to appreciate how all the elements fit together. Something intriguing for fans of crime fiction.

As a somewhat lapsed fan of Brookmyre (except for his wonderful co-written Ambrose Parry books), I was delighted to get the chance to read what sounded like an interesting take on the crime genre. The Cracked Mirror tells the parallel stories of a wee Perthshire village sleuth and a hard-bitten uncompromising LA cop as their own local mysteries bring them together. We have the apparent suicide of a high-up member of Hollywood's elite, and the similar apparent suicide of a British publishing head - both coming just before they were due to sell out to large, morally-bankrupt competitors.
The story alternates between the two main characters, and we get their two very different viewpoints on events and different paces of life, but it is woven together wonderfully. I would have liked a little more time with each individually before their meeting, but not a major gripe.
There is a large twist towards the final fifth - which I had guessed quite a bit in advance - and the whole tale, with the suspiciously similar suicides, making the reader second-guess everything and try to work out what the connection is between the two cases.
A superbly told, pacey thriller that seemlessly meshes together stories from two ends of the Crime spectrum that made me wonder why on earth I drifted away from Brookmyre's great writing (damn you, fantasy!).

I really loved the beginning of this book although I did find it a little confusing for the first few chapters. Having said that it was very cleverly executed and when I realised what was going on it definitely added an extra unusual dimension and showcased an adept style of writing. However, for all that the plot was unique I felt it soon became contrived and so far fetched. I felt there were too many twists and although I very much connected with the two main characters, I started to find it all just too much. The story became too busy and convoluted. Such a shame as this book had so much potential and very clever ideas. I wanted to love it but it just didn’t gel.

Thank you to Netgalley for an ARC copy on exchange for an honest review.

I used to read a lot of Chris Brookmyre books, but haven't read one for many years. This is very different to the older books, but I really enjoyed it.

Rating: 4.3/5

A couple of years ago Chris Brookmyre wrote "The Cut", which presented an unlikely alliance between a 72 year old former movie make-up artist and a young male university student. Together they entered into the world of a conspiracy drama that was fresh, twisting, dark, humorous and, at times, strangely uplifting. In a number of ways the author has revisited similar territory in "The Cracked Mirror". This time we have Penny Coyne, an octogenarian with more than a passing similarity to Miss Marple, crossing the path of Johnny Hawke, a maverick cop from LA, who could easily have stepped out of the pages of a Michael Connelly novel. The result - ultimately - is a very cleverly plotted mystery utilising a combined genre narrative.

Reading this novel is certainly a rollercoaster of a ride and my feelings about it - and attitude towards it - altered quite dramatically along the way. In the early stages I was intrigued and amused by the freshness of the scenario that Chris Brookmyre was presenting. A little later, I found myself becoming frustrated and questioning whether the novelty value had been overplayed. Ultimately, in the final quarter of the story, I had nothing but admiration for the intricate and clever plotting that had been so expertly constructed. Really, it was only when I had finished the whole book that I could properly appreciate the skilful work of the author.

The construction of "The Cracked Mirror" is essentially a mash-up of a "golden age" style mystery and a modern hardboiled crime fiction novel. I deliberately use "mash-up" rather than "blend", because - like oil and water- the two elements do not readily form a stable mixture. Chris Brookmyre brilliantly captures the essence of the two genres and depicts them wonderfully well in their respective chapters. It is deftly done and worthy of admiration. That said, there were times when I felt that this unusual genre fusion was dragging and becoming irritating - though that was probably, in part, due to the fact that I am not a huge fan of hardboiled crime fiction! The "golden age" style of Penny's segments were far more to my personal taste. I was struggling on occasion to escape the feeling that the narrative was too disjointed and that, for all its cleverness, this high concept plot may well work better as a big screen adaptation.

Whatever misgivings I may have had, in the last quarter of the book the author completely won me over. For the sake of remaining as spoiler-free as possible, I will not go into detail, but if I'd been wearing a cap, I would have been doffing it to Chris Brookmyre in those closing sections.

I mentioned earlier that I was only able to fully appreciate the structure of this novel after I had finished it. I suspect that if I were to go back and read "The Cracked Mirror" again, I would appreciate it all the more. I have rated this as a four-star read, purely because I think there were elements that felt too disjointed and grated a little too much during the initial reading process. However, in a little while from now, I may look back and wonder whether I was too harsh and should have gone with the full five stars.

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for supplying an ARC in return for an honest review.

Miss Marple meets Harry Bosch.

Johnny Hawke, hard bitten LA cop isn't convinced that a suicide is actually a suicide, and after being suspended he sets out to get some answers. This path takes him to Perthshire where he crosses paths with Penny Coyne, who is struggling to understand why she has been invited to a wedding. The morning of the wedding there is another suicide, and neither Johnny or Penny are convinced that it is what it looks like. Are both deaths suicides, or where the victims murdered and if so by who and why? Johnny and Penny set out to get some answers. As usual with Brookmyre nothing is what it seems, while this is an entertaining read it is definitely not his best book.

My thanks to Netgalley and Little Brown Book Group for an ARC of this book in return for an honest review. I requested this book because of the author, having loved his Victorian medical series, set in Edinburgh, written with his wife Marisa Haetzman, under the name of Ambrose Parry. He was also recommended by a Scottish member of the book club that I attend.
I was impressed by his writing skills in this novel which begins on two separate continents, each featuring a very different character and alternating between the two every few chapters. Each character has a different writing style so that I would have sworn that it was two separate authors. This takes some doing, but I didn't enjoy the chopping and changing but knew that they would soon join up. The humour in the writing sometimes gets in the way, especially in the midst of high tension, a terrific passage of which happens in the middle of the book, as good as any normally found in a conclusion.
The two characters, a Miss Marple Scottish type of eighty-year-old and a suspended American cop, making a pairing of unlikely allies. This seemed odd. I found the storyline to be all over the place, with too many strands that you hoped would eventually come together. There were now becoming too many characters as well and I was finding it difficult to remember who was who and what was what. But perhaps that's just an age thing on my part. I gradually found that it was just getting daft and if I hadn't requested it, I would probably now have given up. But I did want to find out what was going on, however, bonkers it now was.
I finally finished the book feeling that I had been short-changed and that the author had been too clever by half. The ending of a book has in the past, left me with many differing emotions, but never actually anger at having invested reading time and mental energy trying to figure out what I thought was a genuine puzzle, only, I felt, to have been taken, literally, for a ride by the author. I hope that lover of tech and science fiction will give it a go, but I'm afraid that as a fan of straightforward detection mysteries, it wasn't for me, well written though it was.

The Cracked Mirror revolves around LAPD detective Jack and local crime solver Penny who work together to unravel a series of murders . The story is full of memorable characters and is definitely worth a read!