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The Cracked Mirror

On sale

18th July 2024

Price: £22

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Selected: Hardcover / ISBN-13: 9780349145792

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***Winner of the McIlvanney Award for Best Scottish Crime Book of the Year***

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

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.

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.

Reviews

Stuart Turton
From page to page I couldn't believe what I was reading. Astonishing. Clever. Bewildering and unique. Only Chris Brookmyre could have pulled this off. He's a genius
Mark Billingham
The Cracked Mirror is like no other thriller I've ever read. It blows the crime genre to pieces and then puts it back together again in the most astonishing way possible. Give it all the awards now because this is the most original crime novel of the year
Financial Times
Cutting-edge . . . a brainteaser energised by its narrative splicings. The unlikely duo of Coyne and Hawke unravelling a mystifyingly complex plot is always stimulating
Denise Mina
A glorious masterpiece of captivating storytelling and genre. I've never read anything that works on so many levels at once. An unputdownable delight, especially if being stabbed in a public toilet is your thing
Jane Casey
Only the genius that is Chris Brookmyre could take familiar elements from the crime genre and turn them into something new, unpredictable and completely joyful. The Cracked Mirror is an original and hugely entertaining novel that will make readers guess and guess again
Janice Hallett
A truly masterful and mind-blowing murder mystery that will crash through your every expectation and blow it to smithereens. 'Cracking' dialogue, vivid characters and the sort of genre-busting twists and turns that will leave you reeling in their wake
Irish Times
The ceaselessly inventive Chris Brookmyre . . . Brookmyre's most ambitious novel to date - which is saying something - The Cracked Mirror is a tour de force of high-wire plate-spinning
Best Magazine
An entertaining and thrillingly original adventure
Chris Whitaker
The most original thriller you'll read this year. Hugely ambitious and deeply rewarding, The Cracked Mirror is a mystery like no other. Inventive, emotional and exhilarating
Scottish Field
This is ingenious, inventive and groundbreaking. Crime fiction at its very best
Irish News
Action-packed, the plot makes you wonder what the inside of Brookmyre's head is like - as where it ends up isn't what you expect from the start
The Times
A mind-boggling murder mystery . . . [an] ambitious and affectionate celebration of the many-spendoured crime genre
Jenny Colgan
The most purely enjoyable crime novel of the year
Liz Nugent
This is the most deceptive thriller I've ever read. What an adventure.
Sunday Post
A work of mind-bending escapist genius
Ian Rankin
Chris Brookmyre is a magician with words and his latest sleight-of-hand will have you asking "How did he do that?!" So clever, witty and rewarding