TWISTY TALES JULY 2024: NEW NOVELS BY CHRIS BROOKMYRE AND PETER SWANSON
Fans of twisty crime novels with unexpected turns and shocks, will enjoy these two July releases by Peter Swanson and Chris Brookmyre.
There is no doubting Peter Swanson’s love of the crime fiction genre. His books bristle with references to old crime novels and movies, and he enjoys taking familiar mystery tropes and playing with them and updating them. Probably my favourite of Swanson’s novels is The Kind Worth Killing, which was a loose variation on Patricia Highsmith’s Strangers On A Train, but with lots of originality and cleverness. He followed it up with the equally good The Kind Worth Saving in 2022 and now we have a new novel in the sequence, A Talent For Murder (Faber & Faber, 2 July 2024).
A Talent For Murder plays with that popular domestic suspense device of “How well do you really know your husband?”, but with more twists and less romantic angst.
Martha was quick to marry Alan two years ago, without really knowing him. He was sweet to her and that was enough. But when Martha thinks she sees Alan’s mask slip, she starts to fear that the conferences he travels the country to attend might be a cover for something far more sinister. As her research unearths a string of dead women, she enlists the help of Lily Kintner, an old friend from grad school. What Martha doesn’t know is that Lily has a dark side of her own and some dead bodies in her past. Readers of the first two books also know that Lily is not adverse to administering her own form of justice when necessary.
As with all of Swanson’s books, the plot unfolds in unexpected ways and there are a couple of good shocks along the way to the tense and exciting ending. The characters and the small town milieu are well done, and Swanson is also good at skewering the teachers conferences where much of the action occurs. Adding to the pleasure are the literary references and the amusing crime fiction jokes, as well as Lily’s dark sense of humour.
In all, A Talent For Murder is another enjoying outing for Swanson. The pace is a little slow at times, but overall it works quite well and it is always a pleasure making Lily’s acquaintance again.
A Talent For Murder was released in most jurisdictions in early July 2024. Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the copy of the book for review.
Here is a link to my review of The Kind Worth Saving: https://murdermayhemandlongdogs.com/march-mayhem-new-novels-by-alex-north-peter-swanson-and-rebecca-makkai/
Chris Brookmyre is another author is very good at delivering off-beat twists and keeping readers on their toes. His latest book, The Cracked Mirror (Abacus, 18 July 2024), is a witty and surprising novel that rivals Swanson’s A Talent For Murder in its ability to play with, and upend, the crime fiction conventions that we all love.
It is difficult to describe The Cracked Mirror without inadvertently giving away some of the surprises, and I think that I will stick to what the publishers provide:
“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.”
As the plot summary suggests, the book opens with the two protagonists pursuing their own mysteries. In the small Scottish town of Glen Cluthar Penny has just come back from her holidays and has started investigating a murder in the nearby local church. She has also been invited to a wedding, but she doesn’t know who invited her. While in Los Angeles Johnny Hawke has suspicions that the open and shut suicide that he is investigating is not as straight forward as it seems. Very quickly the two storylines come together.
The plot generally moves along at a reasonable pace, although it does lag at times, and the writing is always witty and engaging. Brookmyre brings plenty of humour to story with some good one-liners and nice descriptions, especially of Glen Cluthar and its inhabitants, and the many tourists:
“Penny understood the protectiveness the locals felt towards Glen Cluthar’s beautiful Main Street. She loved its character and its bustle, even enjoyed slaloming the tourists as they fell upon its gift shops and cafes with the spatial awareness of blind hippos.”
As protagonists, Penny and Hawke tend towards caricature, but that is probably the point. As the book progresses they become more fleshed out and nuanced, and there is genuine poignancy and reflection at times. The other characters are also well sketched and interesting. There is a big twist towards the end, although there are plenty of clues from the beginning suggesting what might be happening, and the various minor mysteries and ‘whodunits’ are cleverly resolved.
I really enjoyed The Cracked Mirror. I suspect that it might not be to everyone’s taste, but it is certainly well worth reading.
The Cracked Mirror is released in the United Kingdom on 18 July 2024. The Kindle version is also released in Australia on that day, but the physical copy is not available until 30 July 2024. The release date for the United States is not clear. Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the copy of the book for review.