Another mixed bag of quick reviews this month – but fairly on brand for my August – something Girls Own, some modern crime and some classic crime!
The Swish of the Curtain by Pamela Brown
This is the story of seven children from three different families who band together to start a theatre company in an abandoned chapel in their home town. Across the course of the book they grow in confidence and reputation to the point where they enter an acting competition against other amateur groups in their town. Children’s books featuring the theatre world are among some of my favourites (the Drina series, Sadlers Wells series and of course Ballet Shoes) so I was excited to read this. And although it’s a bit slow to get going, and may be a bit too long (although it does cover a two year period so maybe the length is understandable) but actually once it got to the final phase of the children trying to prove to their parents that they should be allowed to pursue careers on the stage it was much better. Probably not one that I’ll read again, but I’m glad I read it.
Cracked Mirror by Chris Brookmire*
What happens when a hard-bitten LA cop and a little old lady who solves murders in her small village collide? Well, a completely brain fuddling murder mystery that’s what – and I mean that in a good way. The Cracked Mirror of the title is a screenplay, which seems to have lead to several deaths, which the authorities think are suicides, but Johnny Hawke and Penny Coyne are not convinced and end up investigating their separate cases – which soon collide. And lots of other things are colliding in this too – it’s really hard to explain without giving too much away, but I did enjoy it, once I had time and brain space to concentrate on it so that I could follow what was going on. But it is definitely not a straight-down-the-line crime or mystery novel and I know the blurb says that, but I really cannot emphasise that enough.
Death and the Maiden by Gladys Mitchell
Given how much I enjoy the other Queens of Crime, every now and again I acquire some more Mrs Bradley books and try again in the hope that I just haven’t found the right one to unlock the series for me yet, and every time it’s the same problem. They’re just so hard going compared to the others. The TV version clearly seduced me!
Happy Humpday!
Verity Reads Books (lots of them) 
I’ve tried Gladys Mitchell a couple of times too and have never got on with them. I gave up on the last one I tried. There were so many different characters and I didn’t particularly care for any of them
I can cope with a few dislikeable characters, but not the whole lot! This one wasn’t quite that but it did have a lot of awful people in it – either just terrible or deeply annoying!
I think that annoying characters are possibly worse than ones that I dislike.
Oh possibly. I’m definitely more likely to give up on a book where the leading character is just doing stupid things and being annoying than I am on one where the lead character is dislikeable but interesting.
Yes. Definitely