Regular readers of my blog know that I love historical fiction, crime fiction, and anything with an intriguing setting. This one hits all three!
It’s 1933 and off-season in Brighton, never busy, but definitely not the best time for opening night of a play in the theatre at the end of the Palace Pier. The writer of the play, Bertie Carroll, has popped in to see how it is going – and, along with an old school friend who is now a police detective, witnesses a murder live on stage. It’s left to Bertie and his friend, Detective Hugh Chapman, to try to uncover what happened when the famous leading lady died in front of a (hardly packed) theatre audience.
Surely the culprit is the cast member who fired the gun at the famed Celia Hamilton on stage?
Bertie finds that things are rarely that simple. Instead, he has to navigate a cast of actors whose training allows them to conceal the truths in their own pasts – plus keep his own secret homosexuality hidden in an era which renders his feelings for Hugh illegal.
I found this to be a charming read – there’s lots of likeable characters (including Bertie himself), some figures you might love to hate, plus lots of theatre gossip. I’m really impressed that this is a debut novel as it hangs together so well – and you can definitely see the author’s background in theatre shining through. I didn’t guess the denouement at all – but, when it came, I definitely found it made sense and I kicked myself for missing all the clues along the way.
I’d recommend this to fans of Agatha Christie/Golden Age style murder mysteries. There’s little gore, lots of questioning of suspects and slowly unravelling back-stories – definitely enough to keep an armchair detective in business. I understand that a second book is in the frame and I’m very much looking forward to it.
With thanks to NetGalley for my copy of the novel in exchange for an honest review.
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Header photo by Paolo Chiabrando on Unsplash
