The Cracked Mirror is a unique murder mystery unlike anything I’ve read before! At first, the two POVs seem to clash, where Penny is straight out of an Agatha Christie mystery while Johnny could have been a lead in a Michael Connelly book. It takes a while before they cross paths — I wish it happened sooner — but when they do, things get wild. Both of them are investigating eerily similar murders, but the truth is unexpected.

The book is almost 500 pages with a large cast of characters so it requires a little patience. Luckily, Penny and Johnny are an unlikely duo with engaging conversations and funny moments to balance the action and danger. And it gets emotional too! I don’t want to spoil it but be aware this is not 𝘫𝘶𝘴𝘵 a crime story. It’s about how different mediums like movies and video games can tell stories, how memories play a part in constructing a narrative, and how advanced technology can be used in a quest for justice. If you want a fresh interpretation of a murder mystery, you don’t want to miss this!

Finished this at the weekend and thoroughly enjoyed it!
Having only read the author's historical crime novels written with his wife under the pseudonym Ambrose Parry, I wasn't sure what to expect. other than it probably being well researched and written. It was both these.
I'm not going to type a 'what the books about' review as there are too many ways to give away spoilers, as this book is full with fantastic twists and turns which really kept the pages turning. It has two great main characters, a hybrid genre, and is wonderfully imaginative and highly entertaining. I would say don't read too much up on it as going in not knowing what to expect is best. If you like crime/thrillers/police procedurals, try this!

I have read most of Chris Brookmyre's works, from his fantastic early works, through his incarnation as half of Ambrose Parry and beyond, and this is another excellent addition. The problem is, it's one of those books that is almost impossible to review without giving the whole shebang away.

It's twisty, with a wonderful mish-mash of LA noir meets Miss Marple with a Scottish accent. When the two worlds do collide it gets ever more complicated. But at its heart are these two characters, Penny Coyne and Johnny Hawke, and you genuinely care about them. The plot is, yes, complex and will pull the rug from under your feet, but it is wonderfully done.

Perhaps not at the level, for me, of the earlier stuff like 'Be My Enemy' or 'One Fine Day in the Middle of the Night', this is nonetheless an excellent read and definitely worth reading.

(With thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for an ARC of this title.)

I have loved murder mysteries since my formative years when I would sneak my Mum's Agatha Christies. Not sure I fully understood the finer points, then, but I loved the hunt for a killer walking among us, fictionally speaking, that is.

In The Cracked Mirror we have a beautiful collaboration between two stalwarts of the mystery genre - the gritty police procedural (Johnny) and the sweet, spinsterly crime solving genius (Penny). Here they come together from separate investigations and bump along as well as two diametrically opposed people with unbending views on investigation might. It was such fun! I couldn't foresee where this mishmash was headed but the journey to the unexpected took on more varied and complex twists as it went leaving me thrilled, if not a bit perplexed initially. Ingenious plotting and a quick pace served this novel well making one I thoroughly enjoyed.

Miss Marple meets Michael Connelly could be an easy tagline for award-winning Scottish author Chris Brookmyre’s superb new novel, but that distillation severely underplays all that is going on in The Cracked Mirror, a truly mind-bending mystery.

Yes, Penny Coyne is a tweed-wearing, elderly librarian in a sleepy Scottish village who has helped the local constabulary solve many murders (or done so despite their bumbling). And yes, Johnny Hawke is a hard-bitten LAPD homicide detective with a maverick streak who’s willing to bend the rules to find the truth and catch the bad guys. At the start, as Brookmyre flicks readers between unfolding mysteries in Los Angeles and Scotland, it seems like The Cracked Mirror is two books, or sub-genres, in one. Then Penny and Johnny’s worlds begin to mesh, as she answers a mysterious wedding invitation at a Scottish manor, and Johnny trails a person of interest to the same venue.

As the oddball pairing are thrust together, The Cracked Mirror becomes a helter-skelter thrill ride that will have readers furrowing their brow and whirring through the pages. Are the echoes among some tragic suicides coincidence or something worse? Why are Penny’s local police targetting Johnny, a fellow cop even if one from across the pond? It’s a tale with storytelling at its heart – the trail snakes through screenwriting, book publishing, and video games companies – and with plenty of heart among the hurly burly.

A terrific tale that’s unlike anything else you’ll probably read this year.

[This review was originally written for publication in Good Reading, an Australian-based monthly books magazine]

When you starting reading this, it seems familiar, an Agatha Christie-like protagonist in Penny Coyne who lives in a sleepy town and assists in solving murders. The story then moves to Los Angeles to a brash LA detective, Johnny Hawke, who has a habit of losing his work partners and working to slve homocides in his own belligerent way. There could not be two more differing protagonists. Penny and Johnny appear to be in two different times and in two different worlds, until both end up in Scotland. The pace then picks up as they become embroiled in crime solving. The story is mesmerising and intriguing and what a cracker! A very clever novel that is truly original. It is hard to review it without giving away the plot, but honestly, it is a must read.

Two detectives with very different styles come together in a case that gets more confusing as the time goes on. They find themselves being chased, shot at and almost killed. Can they figure out what's true before they can't.

This was an intriuging premise and definitely caught my eye. Sadly for me it didn't quite deliver. It took me a long time to really get into the story. That being said how it all came together was very clever. I had guessed how this might play out but I enjoyed the details especially about Penny. There's a lot going on in this and takes a while for it all to come together. The story changes POV quite a bit and we jump locations a lot in the beginning but that does settle. A good read but didn't wow me.

Quite simply another excellent piece of work by Mr Brookmyre. While I miss some of the humour of his earlier works his knack for storytelling has never dropped off. Here we have 2 seemingly completely different and unconnected stories, LAPD cop not frightened to bend the rules and an elderly sleuth in a village in Scotland who are brought together when they are both at a wedding in Scotland, him because he's following up on a case from Hollywood and her because, well she doesn't exactly know.

Twists and turns galore and although I had at vague notion of where the story was going by about the ¾ mark of the book I still couldn't be sure as there was more to come. Even towards the end there was still time to chuck in another couple of twists.

Well worth a read for fans of the author and for anyone new to his work.

Thanks to the author, publisher and NetGalley for my review copy.

I enjoyed this mashing together of genres. A gripping novel with engaging albeit very different main characters.

I gave this to a family member who is a huge fan of detective novels and it was very much enjoyed (although he did guess the twist!). One for fans of cosy crime in the vein of Agatha Christie and Richard Osman. Recommended and thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the ARC,

The Cracked Mirror is a story with many layers. As described in the blurb, it unites a tough LA detective, Johnny Hawke, with a seemingly genteel Scottish spinster, Penny Coyne (yes, I know!) a librarian who solves crime in her quaint village. Penny would never break a rule (she know the sorts of consequences that can follow) but she does have some surprises for Hawke (who is of course, Mr Rule Breaker, always at odds with his own boss, and with a string of dead partners behind him).

Each is presented in their own segment, which has its distinct title ("The Cracked Mirror" being one). Hawke is working on a high-stakes murder at a Hollywood film studio, but is about to be suspended and thrown off the case when strings are pulled by those with, well, pull. Coyne investigates a death at a local church, which she solves before moving on to a Society wedding - to which she's been invited, but doesn't know why. Indeed, this isn't the only instance of Penny's memory proving unreliable - an experience shared by Hawke, planting seeds of there being something unsettling going on even before the two, improbably, meet in one story.

Which is where things go REALLY weird. What has so far read as basically a pastiche of two different crime genres, if an entertaining one, then pivots to become something all its own. It isn't an oddball crime story in which the two mismatched detectives have to work together and earn each others' respect. Or rather, it is, it can't avoid being that, but that's almost incidental, it provides some fun but it's not the point. Unfortunately I can't say what the point is without being spoiler, so you'll just have to take it from me, Brookmyre is on top form here and if you think the story as presented is fiendish, well, you've seen nothing yet. This book simply bowled me over.

It wasn't just the way that Brookmyre maintains the structure of the two, very different, narratives - using it to show events from two quite distinct perspectives - while fusing the whole thing into a powerful, engaging and much more distinct unity. Yes, there are cracks here which we will eventually understand once we know what's going on, but those cracks also make sense in terms of the frames of reference of Penny and Johnny. Unlikely events which befall our hapless protagonists do have their own logic, but as they happen, the vividness of Brookmyre's writing sweeps the reader up so were less concerned with the why, as with the "how do they get out of this?"

No, it wasn't just that. I found these characters growing on me. The more I learned about who they were, the more heart I saw this novel had. Behind the different brands of detective genius which the two display (with Penny, especially, showing great ingenuity even though apparently out of her comfort zone in the LA sunshine) there's a real sense of loss, of burned bridges and deep hurt, which drives them to behave as they do (whether to step over the line, or treat it as a religion) and which makes them, in combination, a formidable force.

Come for the high concept, stay for the vivid, relatable characters and their strange world.

Overall, a fun and rather tricksy novel that kept me guessing although - when I went back and thought about it - Brookmyre played a straight bat and left enough hints to work out what is happening. Also, a book that plays some wonderful games with genre conventions and the reader's expectations.

The Cracked Mirror is a gripping and twisty story, and, hopefully, I will manage to talk about it without giving too much away. In Los Angeles, LAPD detective Jonathan Hawke and his new partner are investigating what it appears to be the suicide of a screenwriter. The body was found inside a room locked from the inside and with no other exits, then why Hawke is convinced that there is more to this death and continues to investigate despite his boss’ protests?

Meanwhile, in Scotland, Penny Coyne is the Miss Marple of her little village where murders seem to be an everyday occurrence. She gets a mysterious invitation to an exclusive wedding which ends up with what appears to be another suicide. As Penny and Hawke’s paths cross, they will have to figure out what is going on as things are not at all what you expect.

This book took me completely by surprise. Action-packed, fast-paced, multi-layered, and suspenseful, nothing is what I expected and it kept me on my toes, although there were a few things that I found slightly difficult to follow. This is not my first Chris Brookmyre’s novel and I love his writing style and I enjoy how he manages to perfectly connect everything together.

The Cracked Mirror is described as “a cross-genre hybrid of Agatha Christie and Michael Connelly” and I think there couldn’t be a more apt description for this gripping page-turner!

In this uniquely imaginative novel, we first seem to be immersed in two alternating mysteries. The first involves a Miss Marple style cozy mystery with Penny Coyne, an elderly woman who has solved many murders in her tiny, perfect Scottish village. She is a librarian who lately has been suffering memory lapses and fears she may soon have to move to a nursing home.

In the second mystery, Jonny Hawke, a maverick, hardboiled LAPD officer, not too unlike Harry Bosch, is investigating an apparent suicide of a Hollywood script writer, who he believes was in fact murdered. He has a history of getting his partners killed and is suspended when his latest partner doesn’t even last twenty four hours before dying a horrible death.

Somehow these two narratives merge when Penny Coyne’s and Jonny Hawke’s worlds collide at a wedding at an upmarket hotel in Scotland. A more unlikely pairing would be hard to imagine, but somehow it works, despite them being polar opposites in personality, style and regard for the rules. Eventually these well-crafted characters get to know and respect each other very well though their similarly sharp minds, ability to think outside the box and make swift deductions. The dialogue between them is also razor sharp and often witty.

The plot is complex and multilayered, involving multiple ‘suicides’ over twenty years and just when you think you’ve got to the core, Brookmyre throws a huge twist into the works that is guaranteed to make your mind reel. It was almost too much for my little brain to grasp, but if you feel the same do hang in there as it’s worth it, especially the ending which is so heart rending it will take your breath away.

Mashing together multiple genres, this inventive mystery is not only smart but often humorous and hugely entertaining. There is never a dull moment in the fast paced plot, to the point where sometimes your head will spin. It’s a book that requires a good degree of concentration, with a large cast of secondary characters, to the point where it sometimes became difficult to remember who they all are. But don’t waste too much time worrying about it, just go with the flow and trust Penny and Jonny to carry the show. They know what they’re doing and all will become clear in time. Recommended for all fans of crime novels, especially those looking for something a little different and a whole lot of fun.

Super sp;it crime thriller by Chris Brookmyre.
The worlds of an elderly librarian who solves the unfeasibly high number of suspicious deaths in a sleepy scottish village, c;lashes with an LAPD detective who won't follow the rules and who is a danger to any detective assigned to partner him. Suicides that look a bit too convincing peak the interest of both detectives and they will have to work together to solve the crimes. But there is a twist - and it is a great one. Brookmyre switches well between the characters and develops the story well before bringing them together. Classy and stylish thriller,

An interesting novel from an author who is always interesting! This is a mash up between a Mrs Marple type sleuth and an all action LAPD detective. Two separate investigations come together in a way that throws two very different characters together.
Locked rooms murders and mysteries based in the entertainment industry, the murders, books, film and video games combine in unexpected ways.
It’s a fun, easy and quick read. Some good ideas here (some of which are somewhat telegraphed) but is also felt like there was more the author could have given us.. But you sense the author had fun and you will too, but you might also feel a tad underwhelmed.

There’s a fine line between genius and madness and though this book will mess with your head, Chris Brookmyre undoubtedly comes out on the side of genius.

Penny Coyne, our first protagonist sounds familiar. A retired librarian, Penny lives in the douce village of Glen Couthar in Perthshire. She is used to solving murders, for this quiet but pretty village has had its fair share. She even has a nephew who dotes upon her. As she prepares to set her mind to solving the latest murder – a dead body has been found in the local church – she is somewhat distracted by receiving an invitation to a wedding at the grand Crathie Hall. Penny’s not quite sure who might have added her name to the invitation list, but of course she will attend. So far, so Golden Age Marple-esq mystery. Her dead body – The Case of The Corpse in the Confessional – will have to simmer.

But wait! Next in our protagonist list is the rugged Johnny Hawke. Hawke’s partners have an unfortunate habit of dying on the job, which doesn’t make Hawke popular with his boss or other cops on the job. In Everyone Dies Alone, Hawke is an L.A. cop with an attitude problem, investigating a suicide at a Hollywood film studio. But Hawke is not convinced it was a suicide… it all looks a bit too neat for comfort. Following a lead while suspended, and in pursuit of a character he does not trust, Hawke finds himself at Crathie Hall in Perthshire.

So we understand that we in the world of meta fiction writ large and as these two completely different protagonists investigate their own cases, inevitably their paths cross. Its fair to say that there’s no immediate meeting of minds, but after a while they recognise that each has qualities useful to the other. Both protagonists are beautifully drawn and although they are so clearly unalike, they learn a respect for each other’s abilities and come together to deal with what rapidly becomes a mounting death toll.

Brookmyre has these two genres of crime fiction down pat – and the cosy crime of Marple mashed with the hard boiled police procedural reminiscent of a Sam Spade style detective is so beautifully styled you can see the hommage Brookmyre is paying to both genres.

The Cracked Mirror, though, is so much more than an hommage. Just when you think you have a handle on where this highly entertaining book is going, Brookmyre takes all you think you know and turns it on its head.

With a big cast of characters and a multi layered plot, the reader wonders who to trust and why the UK police have turned on Hawke.

The plot is multi-layered with many surprises, spanning two continents. Threaded through with a huge vein of humour and with two characters who should not work together but absolutely do, this is a rip roaring story that both intrigues and entertains.

Brookmyre drops clues, leaves Easter Eggs and every character adds a layer of meaning to help you understand what is going on. The pace is strong in Perthshire and even faster in L.A. and my head was whirling as I realised where Brookmyre was taking me.

Verdict: A brilliant, surprising, beautifully crafted book of the kind that only comes along once in a very long time. Now that I know, I will go back and read it again – I can see that there are things I have missed. This is genius on the page and deserves all the stars.

A detective story like no other, this was an absolutely insane read but in the best way possible!

Chris Brookmyre somehow manages to blend Miss Marple-style cosy crime with Dirty Harry style hard-boiled crime, with a sci-fi-esque twist, and makes the whole thing work brilliantly. Readers are taken through a series of strangely familiar crimes, linked by characters and circumstances but each with a different set-up and new suspect pool. We dip into the worlds of Hollywood, publishing and gaming – three of my favourite settings to read about – seeing each crime from both the cosy and hardboiled perspectives as the two main characters, Penny Coyne and Johnny Hawke, slowly learn to work together.

It’s difficult to really describe the book any more than that without giving away spoilers or hints that might ruin the beautiful, delicately balanced work of art that is this story. It is complex, clever, entertaining and definitely unique – must-read for jaded crime fans looking for something completely different!

I was sent a copy of The Cracked Mirror by Chris Brookmyre to read and review by NetGalley. What a brilliant read! I loved the way that the two different genres of murder mystery were woven together and the further into the novel the more intense it became. To begin with you couldn’t see how the two different sides to the story would converge but once they did, Wow! I really didn’t want to put this book down and in the end was sorry to have read it so quickly, but I didn’t feel I had any choice! Definitely one for the Christmas stockings this year!

"Full disclosure, this might not be the safer option. People who work with me tend to end up dead."

Johnny Hawke is the archetypal LAPD detective: hardboiled, rebellious and troubled. His partners tend to end up dead. Penny Coyne is a typical cosy crime murder-solving old lady, living in a village in Scotland that has a higher-than-normal body count.

Johnny is assigned to close a case in which an up-and-coming Hollywood screenwriter has shot and killed himself, having locked himself in a room at a studio party. Except something doesn't sit well with Johnny. When he begins to investigate, things go very, very wrong.

Penny is attending the lavish wedding of two publishers, though she has no idea who invited her and why. But when the bride is found hanging inside a belltower, the door locked from the inside, her world is turned upside down.

Johnny's investigations lead him to Scotland, and into Penny's world. The two could not be more different but if they want to find out what is happening, they'll have to work together. The thing is, nothing can prepare them for what they'll find.

I have to say I was rather impressed by this highly entertaining genre-bending thriller/crime fiction novel which is a Miss Marple meets Harry Bosch crossover. While I kind of figured out what was happening around midway through the book, it didn't detract from my enjoyment of the story. Johnny and Penny are fabulous characters. The plot is intriguing and full of clues the reader can follow (like a good Christie whodunit).

The author is excellent at building tension and increasing the action until it reaches its final crescendo, though by the end I had to keep my wits about me not to lose all the threads. A romp of a read.

I had never read this author before and now realise that while I assumed I would be reading a modern-day Miss Marple, this is not this author's intent - although the publisher's blurb suggests this. I found it challenging to see where this was going for most of the read but accept now my expectations were too fixed. Its a new form of crime fiction for me & will read some of his other works - now that I can see this is a new genre in the making


Thank you NetGalley for the ARC