I really tried with this novel but gave up at about 60%. Maybe just the wrong time for me but I was just too confused and didn’t connect to the characters. I did like the sardonic humour but it was t enough to persevere.

A brilliant blend of the genres best bits, Brookmyre is at the top of his game here. Relentlessly funny, but still razor sharp as the best thriller writers.

Very clever, very entertaining book.
At first you can't see the connection between the main characters but once they get together wow!
The characters come to life on the page and are very believable even if the situations they find themselves in are quite complex.
A totally unpredictable but compelling read.

The exceptional brain-twisting mystery by Chris Brookmyre certainly lives up to its billing as an exceptional brain twisting mystery.
The novel begins with a murder in the church and in true Agatha Christie style a little old lady Penny Coyne helps to solve the mystery. We are the whisked away to America where Johnny Hawke, an LAPD detective who doesn’t play by the rules, is looking into a suicide where things aren’t quite what they seem. The chance of Penny and Johnny meeting in the same novel would appear to be highly unlikely but of course this is a novel where anything can happen. The road the novel takes us on has many twists and turns before we meet an incredible twist in the last section. Most enjoyable!

After the first couple of chapters I thought I was in a book with crime fighting characters alike to Miss Marple and Columbo. I just didn’t know where the storyline was taking me. The more I read the more I became intrigued. The ending came as one that I would never have guessed, A very good book which I wholeheartedly recommend..

I was debating with myself how much I could actually say about this book, but the blurb does it neatly for me:
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.

Against all the odds, against the usual story, their worlds are about to collide. It starts with a dead writer and a mysterious wedding invitation. It will end with a rabbit hole that goes so deep, Johnny and Penny might come to question not just whodunnit, but whether they want to know the answer.
So I was trying to reconcile these two parallel stories (well actually there are three), one minute I'm in a sleepy English village with an octogenarian little old lady who has somehow solved multiple murders, the next I'm in Hollywood with a hard-boiled PI - maybe I should have read the blurb LOL.

Penny Coyne is beginning to think she might be losing her memory, especially when she receives an invitation to a swish wedding at a Scottish castle which will also signify the merger of two publishing houses. Penny has no inkling of why she has been invited, surely briefly working for the groom's father forty-plus years ago can't be the reason?

Johnny is investigating what looks like a clear case of suicide in a Hollywood film set, but he's not convinced, then his new partner is killed after someone deliberately torches the film studio to conceal the evidence. His only clue is that the deceased man's writing partner has left LA for Scotland to attend a wedding. The longer Johnny is in Scotland the more similarities he sees between his case in LA and the events in Scotland - almost as if his was the film version and this is the book ...

I have never read a Chris Brookmyre novel before, although my sister has recommended him to me, so I had no idea what to expect. It did take a while to get into this, particularly when the book wrenches from Hollywood to a sleepy Scottish village and back again, but once Penny and Johnny were both at the wedding things started to come together. I must admit I had a smidgen of suspicion about what was happening, but the unravelling of the plot(s) was very satisfying.

Overall, I loved it, a total Mindf*ck.

I received an ARC from the publisher via NetGalley..

I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.


The Cracked Mirror by Chris Brookmyre, is an a buddy crime novel with a twist about two detectives from different sides of the mystery genre,

First we Have Penny Coyne, a little old lady who lives in Scotland, from the cozy end of the genre with Johnny Hawke, from the rule breaking cop from L.A. who keeps losing his partners.

Both of whom become connected by two locked room murders which have surprising connections with each other as well as one from the past.

Just Wow

The Cracked Mirror by Chris Brookmyre is one of those books that you start reading and you think it is taking the reader in one direction, but by the end of the novel you end up in a completely different place.

Firstly the writer Chris Brookmyre has done a brilliant job with the layout and the writing style of the novel, with the book being divided in two parts one from each of the main character's perspective,

However what makes this more amazing is both of the characters in the books are written differently and not just in the personality of the character that you normally get with dual perspective. No, these are written in different categories of the same genre.

The first is Penny Coyne’s section an elderly woman from a small Scottish village, is from the cozy end of the mystery genre.

With the parts of the book about her written, in the classic cozy mystery style,

While the other character, Johnny Hawke, a hard-bitten detective from L.A. parts are written in the style of that novel.

With the novel switching between each perspective throughout,

All these leads the novel to a number of twists and turns throughout that will have you dropping your Jaw in a good and bad way as you read the novel but by the time you reach the end The Cracked Mirror by Chris Brookmyre will have you wanting more from this gender stretching mystery thriller.

Very clever premise for a crime novel and one that Brookmyre pulls off successfully. This the first time I’d read one of his books and it won’t be the last.

I've read a lot of thrillers recently and what attracted me to this one was the description, but also the title, The Mirror Cracked from Side to Side is my favourite Agatha Christie movie adaptation, and so the description of the Penny Coyne put me in mind of that.

It was such an interesting premise, the totally different lives of the two main characters and based on the description I was intrigued to see how their paths would cross.

I wanted to love this, it seemed perfect old crossed with new, cosy mystery crossed with a thriller. There are a lot of characters in this book and that's where I first started struggling. Then the plot takes on an almost sci-fi/tech feel and I started to flag a bit.

I think this is a really unique type of book and there will be appeal, I'm not sure it was right for me and those who read the blurb might not expect the deviation in genre, but the writing was good and well thought out to maintain the story across the genres.

I’ve enjoyed Chris Brookmyre’s previous books such as A Tale Etched in Blood and Hard Black Pencil and more recently The Cliff House, so I was excited to read his latest book – The Cracked Mirror.

Penny Coyne is a retired lady living in a remote Scottish village who has a penchant for solving murders and Johnny Hawke is a LAPD Homicide Detective with a reputation for losing his partners. When they team up to solve a locked room suicide mystery, things start to unravel quickly.

I wanted to really like The Cracked Mirror, but I’ll admit I didn’t find it the easiest of reads. We start off with two different crimes in two different countries to introduce our characters. I found this a little frustrating right off the bat as it was hard to see how they would converge together to make one storyline. We then have the two of them trying to solve 3 very similar cases which seem to be linked. Each case has a wide array of characters and companies and backstories to try and get in your head and a lot of times they are referenced within the other cases as being similar. I found this really hard to keep track of, to be honest.

I really enjoyed the characters – Penny in particular is great, a quintessential British lady wanting to uphold moral values and doing her best not to outright lie, even in the middle of several murder investigations and some shoot outs.

There’s a brilliant twist towards the end which peaked my interest and really pulled all of the threads together, but this comes at about 90% of the way through the book. Sadly, I didn’t really feel that the payoff was worth the amount of pages I’d spent feeling a bit confused and frustrated up until that point.

Overall, The Cracked Mirror is a clever crime thriller, but there’s too many strands and characters to try and keep track off. The twist is brilliant but it comes too late in the story to save it, I’m afraid. Thank you to NetGalley & Little Brown Book Group UK – Abacus for the chance to read the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

What an absolutely very cleverly thought out plot and what absolutely likable and very real characters! Miss Penny Coyne stays in her character of ‘a lady like Miss Marple’ during the whole story and yet in the end she’s changed a bit (for the good or the bad that is for every reader to find out). Johnny Hawke is exactly who he needs to be in this story: a man with hidden depths. Together they find themselves in an adventure they would have never dreamed of.
The plot is multi-layered with lots of real surprises and what I liked most about this book is that although there are things happening that are utterly impossible, you could start to believe that somewhere, in the not so distant future, they would be possible.
The story brings us from the streets of LA to the quiet village of Glen Cuthar and numerous other places and slowly the story unfolds. The ending was very well done and a little heartbreaking. I would love to read more of this author and I can recommend this book to all readers who would like to try a story that is very believable and very unbelievable at the same time.
Thanks to Little, Brown and Netgalley for this review copy.

Unique, original, and unlike anything I’ve read before are statements that get overused in reviews. However, for me they truly apply to The Cracked Mirror. There are plenty of twists and turns in this book but 85% into the story I gasped because I didn’t see that particular twist coming.
But, let’s start at the beginning.

It would be both right and wrong to say that The Mirror Cracked has two main characters because this book starts off with two different stories with different titles, different ways of numbering them, and written in different tenses. Penny Coyne is the main character in one story. She’s a lady in her 80s who lives in a picturesque Scottish village where she has solved numerous crimes. Johnny Hawke, the main character in the second story, is an LAPD police officer with a reputation for getting his partners killed. These two characters have nothing in common and should never have met except that they both end up at the same wedding.

There’s a third story headed Private Investigations followed by a place name. The PI in question is Dan Rattigan. These sections are short, and it doesn’t become clear how Dan is connected to Penny and Johnny’s stories until the end of the book.

That’s all I’m going to say about the story in this book. I hate spoilers in general, but it would be a crime (pun intended) to give anything away here.
Apart from apparently investigating the same mystery, Penny and Johnny don’t appear to have anything in common. It was only when I neared the end of the story that I realised there were other similarities between them. Once Johnny and Penny start cooperating the story is neither particularly cosy nor overly hard-boiled. Johnny adjusts to Penny’s sensibilities while Penny learns to accept that her cosy way of solving mysteries doesn’t always work.

“Penny felt unmoored. In her world, the police did not lie like this.”

This book takes you on a wild rollercoaster ride. Nothing is what it appears to be, and twists and turns keep the reader on their toes. Looking back now, a few days after finishing the book, I want to say that this story shouldn’t have worked but it somehow pulls off what are multiple shocking surprises without this reader rolling her eyes. Also in retrospect, I realised the author played fair with the reader. There were clues as to what was actually happening laced throughout the story. I just didn’t recognise them for what they were until the story spelled it out for me. And just when I thought I had all the answers the story ended and I realised that maybe, just maybe I didn’t. And that that is exactly as it should be.

I’m not sure if this book is ‘the most imaginative and entertaining crime novel of the year, but it is most certainly in the running for that honour. For me, it is a title to add to my very short list of extra-special books because, as I said at the start of my review, this book deserves to be called unique, original, and unlike anything I’ve read before.

This is undoubtedly a complicated wee story, lots of characters, some of whom act in a similar but baffling way. So many characters behaving similarly in fact, I found it a bit perplexing now and then. I thought I could detect hints of other stories- I won't say which ones in case of potential spoilers- but as it turned out my guess was wrong! It does all come together in the end. It's clever and the patter is very entertaining, worth the effort.

Penny Coyne is a Scottish version of Miss Marple, Johnny Hawke, a hardbitten detective of the LAPD. When cosy mystery collides with violent murder, the two must unite to defeat the bad men and solve the mysterious murders. Scenes shift from Scottish village life to Silicon Valley in contemporary California, where it becomes clear to the reader, if not immediately to the hero and heroine that this story is not just Agatha Christie married to Michael Connelly, but The Matrix and Blade Runner too.

I honestly didn't know where this book was heading!
You start off with one character and then switch to a completely different character and then finally they join together in a crossover of genres - Scottish old lady crime sleuth meets brash LA detective at a wedding.
People keep dying around them and they end up on the run together and then science fiction gets thrown in for good measure towards the end too to really confuse matters when you're struggling to keep up with all the different characters as it is.

At times you just have to go with the flow with this one. It's my first Chris Brookmyre book and am left wondering if they are all like this!
I enjoyed the individual parts and some of the interaction between the two main parts - Penny and Hawke. Scene setting was also very good throughout.

However, unfortunately, by the end I was not enjoying it. It was just too many things to get my head around - and I normally like a sci-fi and a crime thriller, just they're not normally in the same book.

I can't say much more without giving the twists away but I struggled a bit overall to like this one, especially towards the end.

THE CRACKED MIRROR

Well, what can I say ??

With such a pragmatic start I was expecting so much more but unfortunately ended up persevering with The Cracked Mirror, as is slowly changed into a novel closer to the science fiction genre.

I think it’s safe to say that this one just wasn’t for me.

There were copious amounts of times that I put it down and only picked it back up reluctantly as it was a NetGalley read and I felt inclined to continue.

On a plus the descriptive prose are sensational and do a great job at painting a vivid picture of the scene in your imagination.

I feel that The Cracked Mirror would appeal to someone who enjoys science fiction and also technology as there are lots of technology references throughout, but this mystery novel just wasn’t right for myself.
But thank you #NetGalley and the publishers #LittleBrownGroupUK #Abacus for my eArc copy in exchange for my honest review.

#TheCrackedMirror #author #ChrisBrookmyre
#mystery #thriller #policeproceduals #womensleuth #sciencefiction

I’ve been reading Chris Brookmyre since the very beginning. Cracked Mirror takes many of his best tropes and turns them into one brilliant and incredibly imaginative thriller. He loves an unusual pairing of protagonists - this time we have a little old lady who likes to solve murders in her sleepy Scottish town and a hard bitten LA cop whose partners have a nasty habit of dying on him. Somehow they both end up at the same big Scottish wedding where the bride apparently kills herself the night before the wedding. Soon they both start asking questions and find themselves on the run from some very bad people.
Set in Scotland and LA, involving a huge cast of characters and several families who all seem to have been affected. by similar murder /suicides. It all gets very complicated and rattles along at a million miles an hour - hugely entertaining. As the book reaches the climax you may well realise that this book is really another of Chris Brookmyre’s favourite tropes, but revealing that would give the game away. The twists keep coming until the final page. I really didn’t want it to end.

I requested an ARC of this thriller because I was intrigued how the author would blend elements of a Scottish ‘cosy crime’ with depictions of hard-boiled Los Angeles police investigations. The answer is, at times they are melded together very well, and at other times, you have to suspend all common sense and faith in literary genres to follow the story line that charts how Scottish senior citizen Penny Coyne and US-American homicide detective Johnny Hawke end up working together to solve the most unbelievable crime. Keeping up with the huge ancillary cast can be taxing, even for the most ardent and experienced thriller reader, but the effort is rewarded when it comes to the novel’s eventual denouement. My thanks go to NetGalley and to the publishers for gifting me an ARC in anticipation of this honest and unbiased book review.

I love it when authors mash up different sub genres and do it well!  With this beauty we get the cosy, vintage feel of a Ms Marple with the edgy, tightly packed thriller with a MMC who reminds me of Martin Riggs and every other "living on the edge" kind of detective!

Octogenarian Penny lives in rural Scotland and still has all her marbles, thank you very much.  

Johnny is the epitome of hard-charging, LAPD detective and like the great Dirty Harry, his partners kind of end up dead! But he's way out of his element when his investigation takes him to Scotland.

The story flows really well between these two POV and the different feel of the characters stays distinct and somehow just blends so well!  The plot twists are enticing and as with any good Marple, there must be multiple red herrings!

They may be complete opposites in just about everything but these two odd ducks make a forceful pairing!  The humour helps it to not be a completely straight forward crime novel and it really helps meld everything together.

As a huge fan of Chris Brookmyre’s books, I was really looking forward to The Cracked Mirror, and I was not disappointed. In fact, this is unlike any of his previous books and will astound and impress you in equal measure.
To begin with, the reader is faced with two very different scenarios, one featuring a Miss Marple-like character solving crimes in a Perthshire village, and the other a tough LAPD detective who is not averse to bending the rules. What could possibly connect two such diverse characters? Once they are forced to start working together, and discover that their skills complement each other, I did not want their collaboration to end. In the hands of such a skillful writer, this hybrid narrative is a joy to read.
There are a lot of characters and a complicated, layered plot to contend with, but as long as you concentrate and immerse yourself in the story the effort will be rewarded. The best thing about The Cracked Mirror is how well Penny Coyne and Johnny Hawke work together when they team up. I enjoyed that the action is split between Scotland and Los Angeles, and how each of the main characters was out of their comfort zone at some point. I think it would be rewarding to reread this book to see what you notice second time around.
The final twist and the superb ending will stay with you long after you have finished reading – it will leave a lasting impression. I cannot recommend this book highly enough and I look forward to the next book from this outstanding writer. Thanks to Abacus and NetGalley for a digital copy to review.