This is Chris Brookmyre’s 25th novel and I happily admit to reading at least half of them, all with the greatest enjoyment. The Cracked Mirror does not disappoint with a provoking meld of Agatha Christie- and Raymond Chandler-like characters confronting the technology of the 21st century. Our two sleuths are Penny Coyne, elderly pillar of rural Perthshire and resident of a picturesque hamlet with an unenviable record of murders, and Johnny Hawke, a hard-nosed, seen-it-all, sharp-shooting LAPD cop. A suspicious suicide and a fatal accident lead Johnny to Scotland in pursuit of the suspected killer. Inevitably their two paths cross. Two distinct entities, two opposed methodologies to solving crime, two very disparate cultures but a shared single objective. Let battle commence. So far so much fun but The Cracked Mirror is much more than it would seem. It defies every cosy whodunnit, every police procedural convention to produce a demanding page-turning murder mystery. Its focus is primarily not on the ‘who’ but the ‘why’ were the crimes committed and very much the ‘how’ was the solution reached. The denouement is extraordinary and extremely worrying in equal measure.

[We have a copy of The Cracked Mirror in the library]