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The Cracked Mirror

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The Cracked Mirror

By: Chris Brookmyre
Narrated by: Sarah Barron, Russ Bain
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About this listen

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.

A cross-genre hybrid of Agatha Christie and Michael Connelly, The Cracked Mirror is the most imaginative and entertaining crime novel of the year, a genre-splicing rollercoaster with a poignantly emotional heart.

©2024 Chris Brookmyre (P)2024 W. F. Howes Ltd Crime Crime Fiction Mystery Police Procedurals Women Sleuths Heartfelt
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This is an extraordinary novel that is both a tour de force and a shapeshifting taker of very big liberties 🤩 It feels at first like an unexpected, and enjoyable mash-up of Agatha Christie Miss Marple elements with Michael Connelly Lieutenant Bosch-like vibes, as two very different sleuths investigate a series of different yet oddly similar murders masquerading as suicides. The suspense and intrigue build up separately in both Scotland and California, before colliding, turning the two stories into one and the two sleuths into a reluctant partnership, as the narrative hurtles towards a more and more full-on scenario that suddenly takes a sharp turn into something so twistily bizarre it almost halted me in my tracks--but transforms once more into something else, rather more poignant, which is worth persevering with. Yet it seems the surprises just won't stop coming 🤩
It won't be to everyone's taste but it certainly is amazing. And it is superlatively well-narrated, the voices perfectly pitched and perfectly evoking the two central characters' very different worlds and personalities.

Unusual, original and so twisty it is head-spinning

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