A great, fun and inventive piece of crime fiction- I love it when authors get creative with a genre and mix it up a bit, and in the hands of the brilliant Chris Brookmyre this absolutely works. It literally is Miss Marple meets hard-boiled LA cop: alternate chapters with apparently no relation until it all ties together but in quite unexpected ways, and with hefty helpings of mystery, humour, action, and pathos along the way.

I'm writing this review a few weeks after reading (I often do this to gather my thoughts), and it makes me not only want to read it again but has reminded me how much (and why) I love Brookmyre, and to go back and read more of his books! A cracking (ha ha) read, and deserves to be a hit. Would make a great movie, too...

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

A 'cracking' detective crossover, prepare yourself for a book hangover because when the realisation dawns it's like having a bucket of iced water tipped over your head.

Wow. Just Wow.

A complex and riveting thriller to challenge your imagination. An LAPD cop and an English amateur sleuth put their wits in an incredible set of murders. There is a complex plot and a lot of characters live and imaginary to come to grips with but it could blow your mind

“Forget what you think you know – this is not that crime novel”, states the publicity for Chris Brookmyre’s new mystery novel. And it’s really not, although I was mightily confused from the get go as to what exactly I was getting myself into.

We start with a … shall we say homage to Miss Marple, perhaps, or Murder She Wrote? The unfortunately named Penny Coyne is very much in the vein of these characters, solving a truly unlikely number of murders in her sleepy little Scottish village.

And then on the other side of the world we have hard-bitten LA homicide detective, Johnny Hawke. You’ll recognise his story too, not least when his angry captain demands his badge and his gun, and warns him against continuing the investigation by himself. The investigation? Well, it’s a locked-room can-only-be-suicide… right? Oh, you so know it’s not. But that’s very much just the tip of the iceberg.

It’s not long before this very unlikely duo are thrown together, trying to solve each others’ mysteries – in more ways than one.

This started off as such an odd read – not bad, but perhaps a little mannered? A little too much ‘in the style of’. I really did wonder where it was all going. Even when that side of things settles down the ‘where is this all going?’ is very much the play, and honestly I really enjoy the kind of mystery where I’m trying to solve not just the on-page crime(s) but also figure out the author’s game.

The collision of the two very different types of crime pastiche and two very, very different kinds of detectives works well. Perhaps a little too well – the clash between Penny and Johnny smooths over a little too easily, I felt, albeit with reason. But, I think that robbed it a little of the culture clash that I expected a bit more of after the opening.

Eventually the penny – pun intended – dropped and I more or less figured out where the story was heading, and I was more or less right. It’s still a fun ride finding out the hows. I will offer one piece of advice: don’t do as I did, and stay up far too late finishing it all off because it’s only another *cough* pages and I wanted to know. I think doing that spoiled a bit of the ending for me, as I just wasn’t alert enough to catch … something… and felt just a tad baffled.

Overall, though, this was a fun read. From ‘hmm’ beginnings I ended up rather enjoying the blend of genres and mixed pastiche, although it could have been done a little more strongly imo, playing into the tropes a little more. Still, it was fun seeing other characters picking up on the movie references and such 🙂

It took me a while to get into this one as it very much felt as I was reading two completely separate books for a while. The contrast between Johnny LAPD and Penny in Scotland could not have been more stark. When the stories finally combine, I though the book got a lot stronger, if things got a little confusing at times with the different characters and subplot timelines. I definitely was not expecting the outcome and thought this was quite clever (if a little scary!). I liked both Johnny and Penny as characters and thought they blended well together and provided enough substance for most types of reader.

It's challenging to describe this book without giving too much away, but The Cracked Mirror hit all the right notes for me. I was so engrossed that I finished it in just two days despite its length. I had such an enjoyable experience that I would recommend it blindly, though I recognize some of its aspects may not appeal to everyone.

The book follows two main characters with distinct storylines: Johnny Hawke, a classic LAPD detective who bends the rules when necessary, is investigating a suspiciously tidy suicide. Meanwhile, Penny Coyne, an 80-year-old librarian renowned in her Scottish small town for solving local murders, is drawn into a mystery of her own. These two narratives converge at a mysterious wedding, leading Johnny and Penny to collaborate on a case that seems beyond their individual capacities.

Throughout the story, we're presented with peculiar details and seemingly nonsensical moments, which, honestly, were the main allure for me. I kept wondering, "What the heck is going on?" and couldn't stop reading. By the 75% mark, I did guess the primary outcome, but there were still some surprising details that I loved the author for including.

There's no doubt that the author has crafted a complex and thrilling adventure. The Cracked Mirror is a genre-bending, mystery-filled, addictive crime novel featuring two likable and very different protagonists who make an unexpectedly great team. If you're open-minded and willing to embrace the journey, you're in for a blast. It's definitely one of my 2024 favorites.

Have you ever wondered what would happen when when a cosy crime Miss Marple-style sleepy village murder mystery runs up against a gritty LA crime drama with a maverick police detective who plays it as hard as the criminals? No, me neither. That unlikely scenario however is what Chris Brookmyre proposes in his latest crime thriller. Obviously though with Brookmyre, there is going to be a postmodern twist on this and presumably some knowing humorous tongue-in-cheek playing with the conventions, but that doesn't entirely redeem the fact that you have to read what amounts substantially on both sides to a work of standard crime fiction by numbers. To be fair however, even if you have a good idea where it is headed, Brookmyre manages to keep this enormously entertaining throughout.
It's always been joked about that you would never invite Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple to your country home or go on holiday with Hercule Poirot, as you're practically certain of having a murder on your hands and being one of the likely suspects. You can rely on the case being effectively resolved certainly, but inevitably at the cost of at least one of the guests you are entertaining. Can you imagine what it must be like to live in the same village as them? That seems to be the case with the sleepy Perthshire village of Glen Cluthar in the Christie-like titled The Cracked Mirror, where a greater number than the national average of people meet an untimely death, but few at least remain unsolved due to the presence of one long-term elderly resident.

Penelope ‘Penny’ Coyne (insert eyeroll emoji here) is just back from a two month cruise to find that Mr Brendan Gault, a businessman who has recently taken up residence in Glen Cluthar, has been found dead in the confessional at the church of St Bride's. He was not a popular figure, his business interests threatening the comfortable equilibrium of the town, and it looks like a move to the same village as Penny Coyne was not a wise one. Nor does it look like a wise move on the part of Chris Brookmyre, whose early works were littered with messy murders and foul-mouthed terrorists planning massacres. You can only hope that the author has a good spin on this venture into cosy crime.

I'm not sure you are going to find it any more promising however when we are suddenly in LA, where maverick police detective Johnny Hawke is on the trail of an elusive smuggler, or he will be once he gets out of the bed he slept in with the nurse who patched him up last night. After trading some smart sharp exchanges of dialogue with his new rookie partner - Hawke's partners have an unfortunate habit of getting themselves killed - he no sooner manages to wrap up the chase than he is sent to look into the suspected suicide of a writer in a Hollywood movie studio, Kingdom Pictures. Not quite so cosy this.

Not too original either. Somehow however, both Penny and Johnny have the strange feeling there is something odd about these cases as well as the impression that they have forgotten something important. The two stories come together when Johnny, having been told to hand over his badge and gun and taken off the case (yes, even he is vaguely aware of the cliché), flies to Scotland for a wedding, looking for the partner of the murdered man for personal reasons. The wedding is one that also brings together a merger of two families in the publishing business, and - would you believe it? - it takes place in Perthshire and Penny has also received an invite. A big social event like this, with powerful people involved and Penny Coyne invited - you'd think they'd know better - you can expect that a murder is on the agenda, and strangely, Hawke notices some unsettling similarities to the case that he has just been taken off.

Chris Brookmyre can be hit and miss for me. He's a terrific writer when he is following his own ideas and, without having to delve too far back, in recent times I've been impressed with the science-fiction of Places in the Darkness, the child abduction thriller Fallen Angel, the giallo inspired The Cut and his brilliant Raven and Fisher period medical thrillers co authored with Marisa Haetzman as Ambrose Parry. (The Cracked Mirror incidentally also seems to partly thrive on the unlikely male and female partnership involved in investigating crime, the man professional and useful in taking the hard hits, while the woman has a way to gain trust easier and get to the places where a lighter touch is needed). I personally find Brookmyre's work less compelling when he appears to be following in the heels of a trend, whether it's the Gone Girl of Black Widow (which nonetheless won crime writer awards) or the modern spin on Agatha Christie in The Cliff House.

It doesn't take a genius or constitute a spoiler to work out that we are in Stuart Turton-like meta-fiction territory here, and while the methodology of that eventually becomes clear - and doesn't really surprise anyone familiar with such tricks - The Cracked Mirror has its own literary spin on the genre. It feels like Brookmyre is again picking up on a trend in literature and finding his own way to use it to consider certain concerns about advances in modern technology. It doesn't really offer anything new here, but with strong central characters and plenty of twists and turns, it remains hugely entertaining throughout.

This was so ace that I’m really upset that I’ve finished reading it!

We start by meeting the very sweet Penny Coyne - a Scottish lady in her 80s living in the quaint village of Glen Cluthar where she seems to keep happening upon murders and solving them with no bother. The Scottish Miss Marple! After solving the murder of an unpopular newcomer to the village, she feels ready for a change of scenery and decides to take up her mysterious wedding invitation - a couple she has no recollection of having met.

Then we jump to detective Johnny Hawke in LAPD robbery homicide. Like Connolly’s Harry Bosch, he plays by his own rules to make sure he gets to the bottom of his cases. Even if it means breaking the law a little bit sometimes. Alongside his new partner, they start looking into a suicide at a film production company that Johnny isn’t keen to write off too early. He suspects foul play and starts to delve deeper. Investigating the possible crime leads him to the same wedding as Penny.

When things start getting more and more intriguing, and parallels are drawn between both settings, Penny and Johnny find themselves working together to find out who is behind a trail of murders and deceit.

I can’t say any more about the storyline without spoiling but it goes in a direction I would never have dreamed! So original and gripping. And the friendship between Penny and Johnny makes the whole thing so special - they’re hilarious together, constantly surprising each other. Penny with her gun skills and Johnny with his literary references - their exchanges are brilliant and it’s a joy seeing them grow so close.

At times I started to get a bit confused and had to trawl through my own brain to remember who some of the characters were, but it all made sense in the end!

A very very clever, original and exciting read. I just wish I could erase my memory of what happens so I could read it again with a fresh brain!

You know Penny Coyne. The little old lady who has solved multiple murders in her otherwise sleepy village, despite bumbling local police. A razor-sharp mind in a twinset and tweed.
You know Johnny Hawke. Hard-bitten LAPD homicide detective. Always in trouble with his captain, always losing partners, but always battling for the truth, whatever it takes.

This begins as two different deaths in two different countries; investigated by the most diverse investigators you could imagine. The strange thing is. It works. The story is so well written and the perfect pacing keeps you reading. The plot is quite complex but absorbing too. At times, however, it does feel like I should have read previous books in the series but that’s not insurmountable.

Christopher Brookmyre is well known for his crime novels with a touch of humour. They are not cosy crime, but standard thrillers which will make you laugh. This novel features two narratives, the first narrative starts in cosy crime territory with a little old lady who solves crimes, the second narrative is about a hard boiled Los Angeles detective. The two genres are about to collide. It is a very clever idea, and well done. My problem is that I am not a fan of hard boiled American thrillers, so I didn't enjoy that part of the book so much and couldn't wait to get back to the "Agatha Christie" sections. However perseverance paid off and it turned into a satisfying enjoyable and very clever read.

It starts with Penelope Coyne (an elderly ‘Miss Marple’ figure) becoming aware of a murder in her small Scottish village. A man has been strangled in the church confessional booth. Having already solved a number of murders in this quiet place - a rather odd claim in itself – she’s determined to somehow involve herself in the investigation.

Meanwhile, in Los Angeles, Jonny Hawke is nursing a headache. He’s woken up in a room he doesn’t recognise, next to a woman he’s struggling to identify. Jonny is a police lieutenant who, we will learn, has a habit of getting his partners killed. His maverick ways have delivered results, but at a hefty price. He’s soon picked up by his latest partner and is off to visit the scene of what appears to be the suicide of a male writer. There seems little doubt that the man took his own life, but his boss want’s the i’s to be fully dotted on this one.

These two threads – an old school murder mystery and a contemporary hardboiled detective tale – are rather odd bedfellows, and yet they are to be merged into a broader story that’s distinctly different to anything I’ve come across before. It’s a book that really demands that you don’t know too much before launching yourself into it, so I’ll pretty much halt my description of the plot there.

I’m an admirer of Brookmyre’s writing; his stories are usually well constructed and include a mix of wry humour, social comments, and plotlines/themes that often surprise and delight. His standalone novels, in particular, are written in a way that had you not known they were from the same pen, you’d swear they were born from a different hand. He’s stylistically brave and adventurous, and this might just be his most outlandish experiment to date.

My own opinion of this one is that it’s a mix of highs and lows. I really enjoyed the uniqueness of the storyline, and I particularly loved the chemistry that developed between the two leading characters. On the downside, I found it challenging to follow the complex unfolding of the tale, with its large cast. In addition, the final denouement felt rather convoluted and also somewhat unsatisfying. As a result, I’m finding it a hard book to rate. It’s probably something just north of three stars for me, but I’m going to round up rather than down simply because of the story’s originality and also because of my admiration for the mind that conceived it.

Nothing is what it seems
I had not read any of this author's book before and had no idea what to expect. I found it pacy and complex.
An Agatha Christie- type Scottish lady with a penchant for solving murders and a hard bitten, rule breaking LA cop seems an unlikely pairing, but after a while it works. Individually they are each working on separate cases of a body found in a locked room. When they meet up the whole thing becomes more complicated and moves to another level.
There are a number of twists and turns in the story and then a huge one that takes it in a completely different direction.
There are some exciting scenes and throughout it is laced with a degree of humour. that make it and interesting read.

Law-abiding amateur sleuth Penny Coyne and gruff rule-breaking LA detective Johnny Hawke form an unlikely alliance to solve a series of apparent suicides that appear wherever they are.

Initially, the stories are separate with the writing style of Penny’s chapters being very distinctive from Johnny Hawke, showing the authors real talent to be able to write a variety of stories. The two come together in a wonderfully strange and hugely enjoyable Marple/Bosch hybrid. What originally starts as a Agatha Christie novel morphs into a high-octane, genre-bending mystery thriller.

It was confusing keeping track of all the different characters and how they relate to the story but it becomes a lot easier to understand. It does become a lot clearer at the end when the answers are revealed and although I did guess the big twist, the who/what/how totally took me by surprise.

A fantastic book with a really unique concept that has never been done before, and I doubt ever will be done again as brilliantly as this.

Well, this is mind blowing and I defy you to figure it out. What a twisted tale of two unlikely allies who solve a very mysterious crime that keeps repeating itself. From Scotland to LA, the hard boiled policeman and the Miss Marple-like genteel old lady join forces to discover the truth.

This was one amazing read. It is a true blown mystery, at times I felt Agatha Christie and then sci fi ideas put that out of my head. The story covers Scotland and Los Angeles with what seems to be two different murder scenario's but these very gradually merge into one full blown gripping read.There is a myriad of side stories that send you off into the wild beyond but throughout there are very subtle hints as to what is really going on. With so many minor sidetracks it becomes quite complex at times to read and it is a very long book but having said that it is engrossing and a compelling read.
I can only say that the ending was amazing and could not have been predicted by the reader despite all the little clues that were thrown in throughout. A great twisty book with characters that were easy to understand and scenery that brought it all alive.

FORGET WHAT YOU THINK YOU KNOW.
THIS IS NOT THAT CRIME NOVEL."
Talk about understatement of the year.
Up to this point I had never read anything by Chris Brookmyre, but seeing that blurb I knew I wanted to.
When I opened The Cracked Mirror I expected an Agatha Christie/ Michael Connelly mashup. I got that, and so much more.
Without giving the plot away, there are two storylines, one in Scotland and one in Los Angeles. Each storyline has an unexplained murder, and its own central character. The two storylines eventually merge, and that's when the fun really begins.
I'm not kidding when I say there's a lot going on, what with multiple POV's and locations, red herrings galore, and a big reveal that will leave you reeling. Then there's that poignant ending. In a nutshell, prepare to be mind blown.
Massive thanks to Little Brown Book Group and Netgalley for the digital ARC.

Absolutely brilliant!! I've never read a Chris Brookmyre book before despite being recommended them by several people, and I wish I had! This is quite a long book which put me off initially but it had such an intricately weaved story which kept good pace so it actually felt like a short read. Highly recommend. Thanks to Abacus, Chris Brookmyre and NetGalley for the ARC.

I've read all of Chris Brookmyres previous books and for me this is up there with his best. I absolutely loved it! I loved the cross-over in genres, the plot and of course the main characters Penny Coyne and Johnny Hawke. What a cracking, clever and complex read. It's so unlike any other murder/thriller/ police procedural out there at the minute that it's impossible to review without spoilers. Needless to say it comes highly recommended by me. Thank you to the author, publisher and netgalley for an early read.

This is a clever concept. The worlds of a Scottish Miss Marple type and a Michael Connelly-esque LA cop collide. Each is investigating a crime and is perplexed by odd lapses of memory and intrusive images. I was intrigued to see how the two stories would come together and what the connection is. It pays off well and is satisfyingly thought-provoking.

However I was less interested in the two mysteries or the investigators themselves. There wasn't the heightened playfulness you might expect of a parody and the characters were so true to type that they had no real individuality. Ironic, given that one theme of the book is the immersive power of stories.

I've read almost all of Brookmyre's novels and love his range, but what I've missed in the last couple of books is his distinctive voice. Whether it was realism, sci-fi or frenzied dark comedy, he had those thrillingly opinionated multi-clause sentences, stuffed with insights, emotional resonance and pointed cultural references. Every word had to be weighed and treasured in case you missed something essential - or hilarious. Now, the prose is polished and accessible, like the work of a highly skilled copywriter, and I find I'm skimming to get to the good bits.

after a few chapters of this I thought I was reading 2 separate stories , one set in America with P.I Johnny Hawke where his partner has been killed whilst investigating an apparent suicide in a locked building, and the other one set in a small Scottish village with an elderly lady Penny Coyne who has retired , runs a library and has a reputation for solving crimes.
However the 2 stories come together when both are invited to a Society wedding at an hotel in Scotland.Neither of them know why they have been invited, but they get together when the bride is found locked in a tower apparently having committed suicide..Links come together from the families involving a publishing house ,a graphic games company and a small film company.
Whilst Penny and Johnny are trying to work out links the police chief and some heavies arrive at the library trying to get rid of them, ending in a shoot out and the 2 going on the run. The clues in the investigation lead them back to the USA and a clinical trials unit .At this point the story went into a futuristic Sci-Fi story with people being put into a coma and being able to remember things and operating as another person. I read the rest of the book but lost interest at this stage.