Smoke and Mirrors
The Brighton Mysteries 2
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4.1 • 85 Ratings
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- £5.99
Publisher Description
'Recalls the very best of Agatha Christie' Sunday Express
Brighton, 1951. Pantomime season takes a dark turn when two missing children are found dead under the snow, surrounded by sweets - a macabre, real-life Hansel and Gretel.
DI Edgar Stephens has plenty of leads to investigate. The missing girl, Annie, used to write plays and perform them with her friends. Does the clue lie in Annie's unfinished - and rather disturbing - last script? Or might it lie with the eccentric actor types who have assembled for the pantomime?
Once again Edgar enlists magician and ex-wartime comrade Max Mephisto's help in penetrating the shadowy theatrical world that seems to hold the key. But is this all just classic misdirection?
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Set in Brighton, England, in 1951, Griffith's captivating sequel to 2015's Zig Zag Girl finds Det. Insp. Edgar Stephens embroiled in a grim holiday hunt for the murderer of two children. Like an unnerving scene from a fairy tale, a trail of candy in the snow leads to the bodies of Annie Francis, a 13-year-old with a talent for writing, and Mark Webster, her constant companion of similar age. As Stephens searches for a killer, tension grows in the town. Is the murderer the candy-store owner and the last to see them alive, or the quirky bachelor who helped the victims stage plays? Matters become more complicated when magician Max Mephisto, Stephen's friend, appears with a disturbingly similar tale of an earlier murder. Is an actor in the Christmas pantomime connected to the long-ago murder of a young performer? Are the present-day murders a reenactment? Stephens and his team must sort through misdirection and vanishing acts before another child dies in this suspenseful outing.
