Book sixteen in the Bryant and May series of mysteries. A country house weekend at Tavistock Hotel beckons and our protagonists are due to attend, incognito. Nothing ever goes to plan, of course, and some chaos ensues as the weekend progresses, plenty of eccentricity, not a little madness and a good dollop of humour. Perhaps not the strongest entry in this long running series but a very welcome one and an enjoyable read.

Certainly not the best of Bryant and May. A younger version of the two characters didn't hit the right bell for me. Found it rather muddled and missed their normal environment.

As I’ve said this is the first of the Bryant & May books that Ive read but, I’m a huge fan of country house murder mysteries which is why this book appealled to me.

This story has the typical cast of characters, even Bryant & May point that out at some point during the story. There’s the Lady of of the house and her son, so that’s the aristocratic portion taken care of, a solicitor, the new millionaire, an unconvential Londoner filling the out of towner seat, the local Reverend (there’s always a Reverend) and a few other random characters. In addition to this we have the usual, stereotypical house staff who sound like they’ve worked there since the turn of the century and the local villagers who appear to hate anything and anyone to do with the big house though you could aruge they have very good reasons for that. Throw in a few hippies and you have a very interesting mix of characters.

This is a story full of red herrings, dead ends and people, as usual, not doing as they’re told. It’s filled with an interesting sense of humour, I’d probably have to describe it as dry and quite subtle. For someone who doesn’t get that style of humour it would be easy for them to miss the jokes in the story, which for me made them that little bit funnier.

The only real problem I had with this story was that I found it a bit too long, for instance I thought it a bit excessive to have over 2 pages of information about a character who was barely in the book after their initial introduction. Much as I appreciate and understand that the convolutions and ramblings are what makes the country house mysteries work I felt this story could have benefitted from a bit more editing and a bit less rambling. Having said that I did find it a romp of a read. The characters were brought to life really well and I could practically hear the creaking of the house settling at night and the explosions from the military nearby. Bryant & May themselves were equal parts fun and frustrating and a great partnership. They worked well together and are a pairing I am looking forward to reading about again.

All in all if you want a read that is slightly different but has that classic bumbling detective (in this case two) who follows a million dead ends but always gets there eventually, the typical country house murder cast with a twist then this is worth a read. It’s not, as such, a read for a certain time of year but it would be perfect on a rainy day.

Thanks Random House UK, Transworld Publishers and netgalley for this ARC.

Fowler gives us glimpse of the past and future in this rollickinng 70's bizare house party mystery.

Bryant and May are back, this time way back into a the 1960's. If you're jumping on board now you probably know all about Bryant and May (although this can be read as a stand alone). This time a younger Bryant and May are decamped from the swinging sixties of London to a stately home in the middle of nowhere. They're mission, to protect a businessman, due to give evidence against a Mr Big the following week. Needless to say, nothing goes to plan, they get cut off from civilisation and there's a murder.

A riotous send up of the golden age 'country house' who-dunnit, it's the best Bryant and May in ages. Check it out.

up until now, it has been hard to imagine Christopher Fowler's pair of aging detectives, Bryant and May, as anything but corderoy-wearing, Werthers Original sucking, curmudgeonly old men. In this latest novel, however, we go back to 1969 and find out what they were like as young men.

To be honest, we do find out that Arthur Bryant was never really very good at being young. He is even less comfortable with Swinging London, young women or the country house party the two detectives have to attend while trying to protect Monty Hatton-Jones, the star witness in a high-profile court case attempting to prosecute a crooked property developer. He is particularly uncomfortable being away from London and finds everything about the countryside scary, untrustworthy and confusing: to be fair, by the time we get through a couple of dead bodies and two or three attempted murders, some catastrophic weather, dead phone lines and a particularly sinful vicar you kind of get his point. As becomes usual through their long career our two heroes are in trouble with their bosses from the start - as usual they use their unique skills to solve this most peculiar of cases. The author says that he wrote the book as a kind of traditional country house crime novel set just as that way of life was being killed off by the modernity of the 1960s - I was fascinated to think that, in fiction at least, that world of weekends in the country and complex period murder plots is still alive and kicking. But we are no longer the centre of the fashionable world - London is as class-bound as it ever was and only the fashions have changed...

I have read most of Christopher Fowler’s Bryant & May mysteries and I think this could now be one of my favourites from the whole series. I love Bryant and May, I love the 1960s and I love a country house murder mystery – result!

“If it’s a proper country house murder it needs to follow country house rules”

In fact, Hall of Mirrors is so much more than a modern take on the classic GAD country house murder mystery. Not only is it well written, superbly plotted and hilarious, it is very knowing and plays with the principles of the genre: it is pure joy from start to finish.

One of Fowler’s main strengths is obviously his characters and it is great from the get-go to be back with Bryant and May; it feels like meeting up with old and familiar (and crabby) friends.

“‘Look, Arthur—’

‘Please, call me Mr Bryant.’”

I know we’ve seen an even younger Bryant and May before but it was good to see their totally believable 1969 selves: John being the ‘cool’, debonair ladies’ man and Bryant being… Well, only marginally less cantankerous than usual but with fewer wrinkles. Although it was nice to be reminded that there is a little vulnerability beneath the grumps and the scarf that is more evident in this 1960s version.

“‘This is so groovy,’ said May. ‘Can you not say that?’ asked Bryant, wincing. ‘I don’t know where you pick up these ghastly neologisms.’ ‘But it’s change, Arthur! You can smell change in the air.’ ‘I can smell hot dogs, incense and marijuana’”

I did miss Janice a little, but it was good to hear from Gladys again. Celeste was a (brief) joy, Monty was brilliantly grotesque and I particularly liked Pamela Claxon and Slade Wilson – to say nothing of Malcrida!

Part of the joy of Christopher Fowler’s books is his meticulous research and the resulting vivid sense of place. Some of the early chapters in Hall of Mirrors serve to bring the positives of the Swinging Sixties to life but later we enter the end-of-an-era decay of the country house ‘weekend party’: simultaneously both harking back to the GAD mysteries and contrasting it with the end of the boom period.

“To the people of Kent, transcendental meditation is something you do on the loo”

The descriptions of Camden, of Tavistock Hall and of the frustrations of a weekend in the countryside with no resources and a land battle taking place on your doorstep are all colourful, bringing the sights, sounds and smells to life. The story also makes reference to several real life crimes of the time and the early 20th Century, again adding some realism to the madness and highlighting the less positive sides to the era.

Another of Fowler’s strengths is his use of language and this in great shape in Hall of Mirrors, from Bryant and May’s word games, to the chapters being named after (mostly) 1960s hits and the wonderfully dry one liners throughout – usually courtesty of Bryant. You really need to take your time reading this as every line is a beautifully crafted joy.

“‘But you’re fully recovered? No mobility problems?’

‘I recently had trouble going through a turnstile with an accordion, but no.’”

As you can tell, I love this series and I really loved this book. Seriously, if you’ve not yet discovered the joy of Bryant and May: WHAT. ARE. YOU. WAITING. FOR?? Hall of Mirrors is the perfect entry point, or alternatively you could just buy the whole series.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for the ARC of Hall of Mirrors and thank you to Anne Cater for organising the Blog Tour.

Fowler is on top form. The venerable detectives investigate a murder at a stately home in 1969 when they were considerably less venerable. The change from the present day helps keep the book fresh, not that the series shows any danger of going stale anyway!!!

1969, Tavistock Hall, and a weekend party is underway. Ten guests, an eclectic group to say the least, all there with different reasons and different secrets, not least two young policemen, assigned to protect a witness in an upcoming court case. Two policemen by the name of Arthur Bryant and John May.
Fighting for the survival of the Peculiar Crimes Unit (not for the last time), the last thing they expect is the house being cut off by army manoeuvres. OK, to be technical, the last thing they expect is that, along with a multitude of crimes, including theft, attempted murder by gargoyle and successful murder by automatic composter… But are the two young detectives in their own Agatha Christie country house mystery or something else entirely…
A trip back in time for our sleuths, bookended by Arthur Bryant’s attempt to write a memoir of an undocumented case of the PCU, and it’s a good way of breathing fresh life into the tales of the detectives. By stripping away the support staff and focussing entirely on Bryant and May, it gives a chance for John May to stand out more than usual and also to document some of the events that helped form the dynamic duo that we’ve been following for the past fourteen books.
It’s an interesting choice to view the swinging Sixties from outside of London – Fowler explains why in an author’s note at the end – but it’s an effective strategy. Bryant’s view of the ever-changing make-up of London means that he never has any intention of embracing the moment, whereas May’s intention to live in the moment means the exact opposite. But this isn’t an historical document about the state of London, it’s a murder mystery and despite claims to the contrary, it’s a classic-style one. Admittedly, there’s a bundle of plot elements that would never have been seen in Dame Agatha’s canon, adding the usual sense of humour to proceedings and giving it a distinctively bonkers flavour while never straying away from an intriguing mystery that keeps the reader guessing.
Admittedly, one element of the plot I found pretty obvious, but how it weaves together into the grand scheme of things blindsided me completely – the resolution is a bit of a cracker, in my opinion – and the epilogue detailing what happened next to the players in the drama adds a delightful end note.
Overall, another winner from Christopher Fowler and his merry curmudgeons – by the way, in case you’re worrying that you’ll miss the grumpy old Arthur, he’s basically just grumpy young Arthur here, old well before his time. Needless to say, this is Highly Recommended.

I enjoyed Hall Of Mirrors. It is the first Bryant and May book I have read; it works fine as a stand-alone novel, but I suspect that there are quite a few running gags and references which I'd have picked up better if I had read some of the previous ones.

It is 1969 and, following a major debacle while in pursuit of a suspect, Arthur and John are sent to a crumbling stately home in Kent to guard a threatened witness in a forthcoming high-profile trial. A good deal of chaos ensues, including a number of deaths, and an Agatha Christie-like mystery develops.

It's a very well written tale and Christopher Fowler has a lot of fun both recreating and sometimes tweaking the nose of the Golden Age country-house mysteries. There is some genuine humour and the period is very well evoked, while the story itself is actually a pretty decent puzzle with two engaging protagonists and an enjoyable cast of characters.

If I have a gripe, it is that at 400 pages the book is too long and did begin to drag on a bit, but it's an enjoyable, entertaining read with some good social history underpinning it. Recommended.

(My thanks to Doubleday for an ARC via NetGalley.)

I'm a fan of Bryant & May books and this one met all my expectations. It's a very good book full of humour and funny and entertaining characters.
It was really interesting to read about their youth and the description of the historical time was both entertaining and interesting.
The plot was great and funny, sometimes made me laugh loud.
It's strongly recommended.
Many thanks to Random House and Netgalley

The memoirs of “an elderly police detective with a faulty memory”- that is Arthur Bryant, in case you do not recognise the description- take the reader back to the swinging sixties.

The matchless Bryant and May are mostly out of their London milieu and have landed up at Tavistock Hall for this latest outing into Christopher Fowler’s world of peculiar crimes.

The country house is the setting, not for a cosy murder mystery, but for something altogether more weird and wonderful, as loyal readers would expect.

Highly recommended. A great read.

Thank you to NetGalley and Transworld Publishers for the digital review copy.

Christopher Fowler takes back into the 1960s, with a much younger Arthur Bryant and John May, into Agatha Christie and the golden age of classic crime with the country house trope with varied guests in this latest edition of this stellar series. It begins with Arthur's meeting with his editor, Simon Sartorius, discussing a new memoir from Bryant documenting his time and cases in the Peculiar Crime Unit. Bryant suggests this historical case set in the Swinging London with its music, art, and colourful fashion that captures the nation in a state of change after the post war austerity years. Needless to say, Bryant is uncomfortable with this period, convinced that it is a flash in the pan before things return to normal. May is in his elements, embracing the fashion and the ideas emanating from an invigorated youth culture with its values of egalitarianism and peace. It begins with a debacle in Camden where Bryant sees Burlington Bertie, aka Cedric Powles, that results in him and May evicted from their beloved PCU by Roger Trapp until they are are assigned to protect Monty Hatton Jones, who is turning on his friend and business associate, Sir Charles Chamberlain, by giving evidence against him in a upcoming trial over the collapse of buildings that resulted in a number of deaths.

Monty is a unlikable man, who is less than impressed by Bryant and May, insisting that he takes up an invitation to house party at Tavistock Hall in Kent. Bryant, a man who is like a fish out of water in powerful and aristocratic circles, takes with him costumes from Noel Coward theatre productions in his vain attempts to fit in. The dilapidated Hall is in the process of being sold to Donald Burke by Lord Banks Marion, Harry, who is more concerned with the ashram he has set up in the grounds. His elderly mother, Beatrice, Lady Banks Marion, is unhappy seeing family heritage and an era slipping away. The guests are a predatory group, all harbouring an agenda which sees them seeking financial aid from the elusive Burke. Monty wants money to support his failing business, the Reverend is seeking support for the local church and so on. Burke's mistress, the singer Vanessa is invited along with wife, Norma. Tensions abound, with strange accidents and murders taking place. There are rumours of the legend of the Crowshott Beast and the military have engaged in exercises that cut of the guests and residents of the Hall. Will Bryant and May get to the bottom of what is going on at the Hall?

Fowler delivers his reliable mix of comic humour with a social and political commentary of the historical period, choosing to focus on the demise of the country house phenomena with the financial pressures faced by the aristocracy. A young Bryant is a man uncomfortable with people, already happier amidst the academic and books, rooted in the East End working class. May, by contrast, cuts a charismatic figure although he is unaware of it, his social skills have the guests at the Hall gravitating towards him. This is a great addition to the series, giving us a glimpse into our detectives younger selves, and foretelling the characters they grow into. I particularly loved how May was uninhibited in his love of 60s fashion! A fantastic, entertaining read with Bryant and May roaming in Agatha Christie country. Highly recommended. Many thanks to Random House Transworld for an ARC.

Man, oh man, oh man, I loved this. I even had to go against all my instincts and stretch out the reading, because I just didn’t want to get to the end and have to wait another year for the next one. Just *love* Bryant & May.

The release of a new Bryant and May novel is always a big event at LifeOfCri.me Manor. Each eagerly awaited edition is devoured, normally, and when the opportunity arises to get a chance of an early copy it’s one that I won’t miss. As such I found myself getting to grips with John May and Arthur Bryant in full on throwback mode, with Hall of Mirrors being set in 1969, and trying desperately to slow down my reading and swallow up each and every delicious word.

It’s definitely my favourite of the series so far, mainly because it’s one of my favourite styles of tale. Hall of Mirrors is what Fowler calls a ‘precinct’ novel (as was White Corridor). Everything happens in a limited space and time. In this case an old manor house, a flooded and a closed off village, alongside a small cast of vivid characters, and of course the requisite murder.

I adored meeting younger versions of Bryant and May, and seeing the beginnings of some of their well known idiosyncrasies. It was also fun to meet some of the earlier generations of staff at the PCU, names you will be familiar with from earlier novels but have only met fleetingly.

All of this makes Hall of Mirrors as amazing a read to satisfy the most ardent of followers, whilst making the entire series completely accessible to anyone new to Bryant and May, because it can be read and enjoyed as a completely standalone novel. If you are new to these pair, I’m sure you will be hooked, and more than pleased to know there are another 14 books you can catch up with!

Highly recommended by me.

The first six Bryant & May books dotted back and forth in the detectives' long careers, but since Fowler opted to continue the series further the novels have remained stuck in the present day. No longer; after a brief modern framing sequence, reminding us that Mr Bryant's memories can't always be trusted (and thus excusing any anachronisms or implausibilities along the way), we're now back in 1969, when May was even more of a dapper hit with the ladies, and Bryant not yet quite so ornery but still reliably odd and embarrassing. Don't bother trying to work out the exact ages; the books have long lampshaded the fact that even London's oldest detectives could no longer have a career beginning in the Blitz, and that point is brought up again a couple of times here by way of reminding us that Marvel Comics aren't the only ones making use of a sliding timeline. It's a fruitful period to pick, though - the hippy dream is souring, the Manson family have just run amok in the US, and yet you can still just about get away with a country house murder mystery which hinges on the period as a time of transition for country houses. The setting is a grand old pile in Kent, riddled with rot both physical and spiritual, which the impecunious New Age new lord of the manor is flogging to new money. Or at least, that's the plan, before the bodies start dropping and the secrets start coming out.

Most of my quibbles with the series are still present and correct: characters remain prone to lecturing each other with undigested research, and now there's hindsight to factor in too. The politics are never knowingly subtle, and there's even the obligatory threat to close down the Peculiar Crimes Unit, though given we all know that can't happen back then it's at least mercifully minimal this time. But the change of scene does lead to some adjustments. In the modern day Bryant tends to seem like an authorial avatar, bemoaning the loss of the strange old London and its replacement with a characterless plutocrats' paradise. But push him back into the past and at times this leaves him sticking up for things like outdoor loos, which I'm fairly sure none of us want back, Fowler included*. And sacrificing such an obvious anchor character makes for a more open, shifting and ultimately satisfactory reading experience. Set against that, alas, there's the problem which always arises when Bryant and May are out of London, as in the previous <i>White Corridor</i>. As the ghastly Oscar Kasavian's far wiser father notes before assigning them to this case, they are fundamentally creatures of the city, and that's why we need them, why I enjoy these books enough to have read 15 of them despite my objections. Push them out of that environment and, well, they still have their charms, but there's always a sense that their powers are ebbing as you read; not fish out of water, perhaps, but certainly Namor too far from the sea for too long. Not that Bryant in particular isn't painfully aware of that himself.

What else? Well, the period detail can be a little <i>Wonder Years</i> in places, with <i>Dixon of Dock Green</i> coming on later and Cilla on the radio, or newspapers with the Krays on the front page - but then the excuse of Bryant as unreliable if invisible narrator covers that. Having the country house cut off by misplaced military exercises is one thing, but to then add a thunderstorm too, for another source of ominous booms and impassable roads, feels a trifle excessive. I do like how the odd duo's working relationship is recognisable, but not identical: the little word games they've since grown past in their further decades together; the bets; even the greater prickliness in places. Similarly, it's lovely seeing where familiar features of each detective's character originated. And I don't know whether it's deliberate that the interior designer shares a name with Deathstroke, but either way it amused me.

*And certainly not me - I'm old enough to just remember a grandparent stil having one in the early eighties. And this in the heart of a city, mind, not out in the sticks. A horrid, dark and spidery place it was too.

(Netgalley ARC)

I would like to thank Netgalley and Random House UK, Transworld Publishers for an advance copy of Hall of Mirrors, the fifteenth novel in the Bryant and May series.

Arthur Bryant's publisher asks him for another set of memoirs from the Peculiar Crimes Unit's archive and the reader is transported back to 1969 when Bryant and May were young and inexperienced and London was swinging. Due to an unfortunate episode involving a flare gun and a sunken barge the two of them are threatened with the sack and promised that they will never work in the PCU again. In the interim they are asked to protect Monty Hatton-Jones, a whistleblower in a corruption trial, on behalf of the Crown Prosecution Service. Monty, however, has ideas of his own and insists that they accompany him for the weekend to Tavistock Hall in darkest Kent where he has business to conduct. Things, however, do not go according to plan, especially when a body turns up.

I thoroughly enjoyed Hall of Mirrors which had me chortling from start to finish. It has all the usual ingredients of slapstick, irreverence, humorous badinage and a convoluted plot although, being set in Kent, the London detail is missing. You could be forgiven for thinking that it will be a golden age style novel with the country house setting and the limited number of well to do suspects but Mr Fowler's sense of anarchy soon takes over and it's basically mayhem. Due to a logistics mishap Tavistock Hall ends up in the middle of a military training manoeuvre abound with live rounds and tanks so the army takes the pragmatic approach of closing all the surrounding roads. Their communications equipment also jams the phone lines leaving the house party stranded with a murderer.

It is interesting to see the detectives as callow young men. Arthur is out of his depth and slightly panicked at being out of London and in exalted company. John is more worldly and appears to have adapted well to the new reality of the swinging sixties but he, also is out of his depth and comfort zone. How they manage to solve the crime is beyond me but it's fun watching their efforts. I must admit that I guessed early on where some of the plot was headed but it didn't spoil my enjoyment in the slightest as I read this series for the fun rather than the crime element.

I was most impressed with Mr Fowler's grasp of the period. I was too young to have experienced the era myself but it jibes with everything I've heard or read. I found it immersive and realistic from the attitudes and beliefs to the corruption. It made me laugh to hear John May say "groovy"!

Hall of Mirrors is a fine addition to a compulsive series and I have no hesitation in recommending it as a good read.

A great read . Throughly enjoyable.