Tag: sci-fi

Book Review – The Cracked Mirror by Christopher Brookmyre

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About the Book

FORGET WHAT YOU THINK YOU KNOW. THIS IS NOT THAT CRIME NOVEL

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.

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 Sunday best hat.

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 just come to question not just whodunnit, but whether they want to know the answer.

Format: ebook (496 pages) Publisher: Abacus
Publication date: 18th July 2024 Genre: Crime

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My Review

The Cracked Mirror is described as ‘a cross-genre hybrid of Agatha Christie and Michael Connelly’. (Having never read a book by Michael Connelly that didn’t help me much.)

Initially, the story alternates between two different storylines. There’s Penny Coyne, known for solving murders in Glen Cluthar which, like St Mary Mead in Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple series, has an unusually high death rate for a small village. However, the latest murder in Glen Cluthar has a darker side to it than Penny’s used to. Added to this, she’s beginning to worry about strange lapses in her memory and wondering if she should follow her nephew’s suggestion that she move into a residential home. Being fiercely independent, it’s something she has resisted up until now.

And then we have LAPD detective Johnny Hawke, who’s not afraid to bend the rules in order to bring bad guys to justice and is always a hair’s breadth away from death. He’s investigating a death which in all respects looks like suicide – room locked from the inside – but about which Johnny has his doubts.

At this point the two storylines come together as both Penny and Johnny find themselves – for different reasons – in the same hotel in Scotland where a society wedding is taking place. Suddenly something happens which has similarities with the case Johnny was investigating meaning Penny and Johnny find themselves becoming partners, albeit with very different approaches when it comes to solving crimes.

That makes it sound straightforward but it gets increasingly complicated as more and more characters are introduced to the point where I found it hard to keep track of who was who and how they were related. And at around 80% of the way through, well let’s just say it goes in a completely different direction that left my head spinning even more. (Some readers may pick up references that eluded me meaning it doesn’t come as quite such a surprise for them.)

I loved Johnny and thought he was an authentic representation of the maverick cop beloved of American crime thrillers. I didn’t get the same feeling about Penny, perhaps because of the contemporary setting and the fact Glen Cluthar is soon left far behind.

If the author set himself the challenge of creating a mind-bending crime novel then he definitely succeeded. If you’re game for a crime novel that will get your brain working hard, The Cracked Mirror will be right up your street.

In three words: Clever, imaginative, complicated

About the Author

Christopher Brookmyre was a journalist before becoming a full-time novelist with the publication of his award-winning debut Quite Ugly One Morning, which established him as one of Britain’s leading crime writers. His 2016 novel Black Widow won both the McIlvanney Prize and the Theakstons Old Peculiar Crime Novel of the Year award. Brookmyre’s novels have sold more than two million copies in the UK alone. He also writes historical fiction with Marisa Haetzman, under the pseudonym ‘Ambrose Parry’.

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Book Review – The Second Sleep by Robert Harris

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About the Book

Book cover of The Second Sleep by Robert Harris

All civilisations think they are invulnerable. History warns us none is.

1468. A young priest, Christopher Fairfax, arrives in a remote Exmoor village to conduct the funeral of his predecessor. The land around is strewn with ancient artefacts – coins, fragments of glass, human bones – which the old parson used to collect. Did his obsession with the past lead to his death?

As Fairfax is drawn more deeply into the isolated community, everything he believes – about himself, his faith and the history of his world – is tested to destruction.

Format: Paperback (414 pages) Publisher: Arrow
Publication date: 20th August 2019 Genre: Historical Fiction, Science Fiction

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My Review

The Second Sleep starts off like a historical mystery but before long there’s a ‘wow moment’ and you realise it’s going to be something entirely different. This makes it quite difficult to write a review without giving too much away.

Safe to say, from the descriptions of everyday life you can easily imagine yourself to be in the 15th century. Life is simple but harsh, regulated by the seasons and by the strictures of religious doctrine which prescribe certain opinions as heresy. Questioning the teaching of the Church is not a good idea; it can make you powerful enemies. Most people make a living (if you can call it that) from the land or work in the local mill. They marry early and die early. Every now and again, when tilling the land or constructing a building, they come across an object completely unfamiliar to them and whose purpose they cannot identify.

Dedicated young priest, Christopher Fairfax finds everything he’s been taught to believe – and has preached to others – is turned upside down by the discovery of a book containing an earth-shattering revelation. It brings about a crisis of faith but also ignites in him a passion to discover the truth. Fairfax, two influential members of the community and a fanatical antiquarian together embark on a search that is full of peril, not least because discovery would threaten their liberty, and quite possibly their lives.

I loved the setting, the characters, the relationships between them and the page-turning tension of the search for answers. The ending, whilst sobering, is completely in tune with the theme of the book.

The book’s title references the notion that our ancestors may have adopted ‘biphasic sleep’ in which a first and second period of nightly sleep was broken by a short period of wakefulness. It can be viewed as a metaphor for the story that unfolds. Robert Harris seems to have the knack of subtly weaving contemporary issues into historical novels and this one, with its warnings about the fragile nature of civilisation and the risk of assuming its invulnerability, is no exception. Indeed it may be even more relevant now than it was when this book was written.

In three words: Compelling, imaginative, thought-provoking
Try something similar: The Time Machine by H. G. Wells

About the Author

Author Robert Harris

Robert Harris is the author of fifteen bestselling novels: the Cicero Trilogy – Imperium, Lustrum and Dictator – Fatherland, Enigma, Archangel, Pompeii, The Ghost, The Fear Index, An Officer and a Spy, which won four prizes including the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction, Conclave, Munich, The Second Sleep, V2 and Act of Oblivion. His work has been translated into forty languages and nine of his books have been adapted for cinema and television. He lives in West Berkshire with his wife, Gill Hornby.

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