The year is 1969, and 10 guests are about to enjoy a weekend at Tavistock Hall. The guests also include detectives Arthur Bryant and John May - undercover, in disguise and tasked with protecting Monty Hatton-Jones, a whistle-blower turning Queen's evidence in a massive bribery trial.
A largely comic escapade whose tone evokes both the biting wit of Evelyn Waugh and the slapstickier shenanigans of P.G. Wodehouse. Bryant himself deems this country-house mystery 'rather like an Agatha Christie novel.'
Fowler always manages to keep things fresh, and Hall of Mirrors is no exception ... well written and original as ever ... London is normally like an additional character in the Bryant and May novels. However, the unique, macabre and peculiar aspects of the city and its people, which Fowler writes about so well, are missing here and the story suffers a little for it.
[A] narrative veering between laugh-out-loud funny to macabre (a body in a macerator, murder by knitting needle). This fifteenth Bryant and May outing concludes with an updating on the lives of all the characters. Could this signal an end to the long-running, eccentric, and consistently entertaining series? Let’s hope not.
