Book Review 2021 #2 - Elly Griffiths's Smoke and Mirrors
Smoke and Mirrors by Elly Griffiths
Published by: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Publication Date: November 5th, 2015
Format: Kindle, 352 Pages
Rating: ★★★★★
To Buy (different edition than one reviewed)
The holiday season has descended on Brighton, which means it's Panto time! In seaside towns across England theaters are getting ready to open up for the Christmas season. In Brighton it's caused rather a stir that Max Mephisto is going to be staring in a production of Aladdin as the villainous Abanazar. But soon it's not the pantomime or the unending snow that is the number one conversation in Brighton, it's the disappearance of two children, Annie and Mark. Sadly there will be no happy ending in this case as their small bodies are found under the snow. They are staged like some sick version of Hansel and Gretel with candy strewn about their bodies. Who would abduct these children, destroying two families in the process? As Edgar starts to dig into the lives of Annie and Mark he realizes how amazingly talented and beloved these best friends were. They loved staging plays at an "uncle's" house. Annie would write all the dialogue while Mark was the production assistant. They had their own troupe of players, younger kids who admired them and in particular Annie's ability with a dark twist. The kids feed on dark material and are encouraged by their teacher, Miss Young, who loves to recount the darker of Grimms' Fairy Tales to her pupils. This raises eyebrows amongst the police force. Do children really crave and understand darkness like Miss Young insists? Annie's plays may indicate that this is the case, though to Edgar it makes Miss Young their prime suspect. That is until she is murdered as well. Desperate Edgar turns to his fellow Magic Man Max Mephisto to try to get a grip on the theatrical and fantastical aspects of these crimes and learns of a similar case years earlier that eerily echoes the one they are investigating. But that murder was so long ago and the culprit was caught and hanged. Could this be a copycat killer? Anything is possible, but there's one thing Edgar knows, he will do everything in his power to catch the killer before they strike again. The snow may fall, the wind may whip, but justice will be served.
As an ardent Anglophile there is one thing I will just never get and that's Panto. Whatever theatrical traditions it's origins, it has evolved, or in my opinion, devolved, into this weird spectacle of garish costumes, cross-dressing, lewd humor, and tons of double entendres. Like variety shows your grandmother would force you to watch where all the humor seems out of date and you are praying for it to be over but based on fairy tales or folklore, like Dick Whittington's cat, making it somehow more inherently English in the process. So the Brits actually go to these shows over the holiday season, most of the productions staring former B-List or lower celebrities, with the rare A-lister, all of whom are willing to tart themselves up to make the kiddies laugh. Yet that seedy celebrity angle combined with the fact that it's done for children gives it a duel edge that can go from cute to creepy in a second. Therefore it's the perfect backdrop for the investigation of the murder of some children. It somehow feeds into it so well. Yes, the murder of children will always have a seamy side, because what perverted person would cut a life so short. But having this added creepiness made this mystery something so much more. In fact, what it reminded me of, not the least of which because of the 1950s setting, is the second Flavia De Luce book, The Weed That Strings the Hangman's Bag. This is easily my favorite book in Alan Bradley's series, but more importantly, it's one of my most favorite mysteries ever and it deals with the murder of a beloved children's puppeteer. I can't get enough of murder mysteries that bridge the gap between horror and innocence, when it's done right, and Smoke and Mirrors does it oh so right. And as if this book couldn't be more perfect the fairy tale "Hans My Hedgehog" plays an important role. This is one of the fairy tales that was adapted for Jim Henson's The Storyteller and is therefore a favorite of mine. I feel like not enough people embrace how wonderful it is and am glad to find an author who agrees. Don't be surprised if this makes in on my top ten list of books I read in 2021.
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