Recommendsday: Mysteries set in theatres

I’m back with a post of mysteries set in theatres because I’ve read a few of them recently. I did a post of theatre-set books a couple of years back and most of those were mysteries, but not all, but do take a look back at that too. There’s a bit of a theme here, because they’re all books in series, but they can all be read standalone without you missing anything crucial to follow the plots.

Hattie Steals the Show by Patrick Gleeson

This was my purchase at the Notting Hill Bookshop and turns out to be the second book featuring Hattie, which I didn’t realise at the time. Our plot is thus: Hattie is a stage manager, who has a job teaching at a stage school but it’s the summer holidays and has taken a couple of weeks cover work on a West End show for a friend. But when she turns up to shadow the job, they find a body in the theatre and one of Hattie’s old friends is the chief suspect. And so she starts to investigate, which leads her to a country house for a week long workshop of a new musical where a lot of the suspects will be. The author is a stage manager himself so I loved all the detail on that in the book, although I did have a couple of the plot twists worked out before they happened. But it’s got a lovely easy style about it and doesn’t info dump on you, to the extent that I really want to read the first book to see how much of the backstory was in that and how much was a new reveal in this. I really hope there are more too.

A Deadly Night at the Theatre by Katy Watson

This is the fifth book in the Three Dahlias series and sees two of the trio starring in (different) West End plays. But there is discord in the group as one of the stars of Caro’s show is Luke, an actor who has a history with Posy. Rosalind discovers this when she arrives in town to see the two shows, but then Like is found dead in Post’s dressing room everything lols on the verge of falling apart. While Posy holes up at her flat, Ros and Caro investigate, but are they really sure it wasn’t Posy? As you know I really like this series and i like the way that Katy Watson keeps finding them new settings for the Dahlias so it doesn’t feel obviously like one cursed literary franchise.

A Howl of Wolves by Judith Flanders

This is the fourth and final book in the Sam Clair series, and sees Sam and her boyfriend Jake at the theatre when a real body appears on the stage. As I said in my post about the series, Sam is a great character, but the supporting characters are also a joy, and in this one they are really front and centre – because the reason Sam is at the theatre is because her upstairs neighbours are in the play. There’s less of the publishing world detail in this one – or at least it’s less obviously publishing related, but we also get a good dose of Sam’s frighteningly efficient mum Helena. This is the hardest to get hold of of the series – it only came out in hardback and isn’t on Kindle (yet) but if you do spot a copy somewhere it’s worth it.

Murder at the Playhouses by Stuart Douglas

A slight theme is going on here as this is the second in the Lowe and Le Breton series, following on from Death at the Dress Rehearsal. This sees Edward and John taking on parts in a Shakespeare production in the gap between filming of series of Floggit and Leggit. They’ve been recruited because one of the company has been sacked for drunkenness. John is worried about the potential for Sir Nathaniel turning up to reclaim his job and making a scene – especially because he knows him – but then a body is found. This is fun, but it’s a little bit overlong and could have done with another editing pass because I spotted a continuity mistake in there (which really bugged me!) but I really like the characters and I hope we get a third one at some point.

Happy Humpday!