The Cracked Mirror

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What to expect

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.

User Reviews

Book 3.0
Narration 5.0
3.0
5.0
I suspect this is quite brilliant but it's also the most complicated plot I have ever encountered. It's witty and clever and intricate but may be better consumed as a physical book; I was unable to keep track of the multiple characters and their interrelationships. I most enjoyed the first part which alternates between the genteel world of a Scottish version of Miss Marple and the action-packed drama of a maverick LA cop, amusingly demonstrating how stylised our detective genres are. Then these worlds collide and two parallel locked room mysteries are investigated. There's a sci-fi or AI plot twist which is mind boggling but does make sense of the almost impossibly complex scenarios our two heroes are embroiled in, but by then I had begun to lose the suspension of credibility.
jackdor 12/01/2025

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