Smoke And Mirrors: A Mystery

By Elly Griffiths

“Another great series.” — San Jose Mercury News

“A dazzlingly tricky mystery.” — Kirkus Reviews
 
“A tremendous skein of red herrings, sharp and thorough police work, [and] mysterious connections.” — Bookgasm
 
It’s Christmastime in Brighton, and the city is abuzz about magician Max Mephisto’s star turn in Aladdin. But the holiday cheer is lost on DI Edgar Stephens. He’s investigating the murder of two children, Annie and Mark, who were found in the woods alongside a trail of candy—a horrifying scene eerily reminiscent of “Hansel and Gretel.”
Edgar has plenty of leads. Annie, a dark child, wrote gruesome plays based on the Grimms’ fairy tales. Does the key to the case lie in her final script? Or does the macabre staging of the bodies point to the theater and the capricious cast of Aladdin? Edgar enlists Max’s help in penetrating the shadowy world of the theater. But is this all just classic misdirection?
 
“Excellent . . . Evoking both the St. Mary Mead of Agatha Christie and the theater world of Ngaio Marsh.” — Booklist  

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Release date: Oct 18, 2016
• ISBN: 9780544527980

Elly Griffiths

Elly Griffiths is the USA Today bestselling author of the Ruth Galloway and Brighton mystery series, as well as the standalone novels The Stranger Diaries, winner of the Edgar Award for Best Novel; The Postscript Murders; and Bleeding Heart Yard. She is the recipient of the CWA Dagger in the Library Award and the Mary Higgins Clark Award. She lives in Brighton, England.

Book preview

First Mariner Books edition 2017

Copyright © 2015 by Elly Griffiths

All rights reserved

For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to [e-mail] or to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 3 Park Avenue, 19th Floor, New York, New York 10016.

www.hmhco.com

First published in Great Britain in 2015 by Quercus

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Griffiths, Elly, author.

Title: Smoke and mirrors / Elly Griffiths.

Description: First U.S. edition. | Boston ; New York : Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2016. | "2015 Identifiers: LCCN 2016004630 (print) | LCCN 2016010137 (ebook) | ISBN 9780544527959 (hardback) | ISBN 9780544527980 (ebook) | ISBN 9781328745590 (pbk.)

Subjects: LCSH: Magicians—Fiction. | Serial murder investigation—Fiction. |BISAC: FICTION / Mystery & Detective / General. FICTION / Mystery & Detective / Historical. | GSAFD: Mystery fiction. | Suspense fiction.

Classification: LCC PR6107.R534 S66 2016 (print) | LCC PR6107.R534 (ebook) | DDC 823/.92—dc23

LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2016004630

Cover design and illustration © Paul Blow

Author photograph © Sara Reeve

v7.0718

For Carol

Aladdin A Bert Billington ProductionDancers: The Boys and Girls of Peking

Choreography: Daniel Barnes

Directed by Roger Dunkley

Script by Nigel Castle, based on a traditional tale from

The Arabian Nights

Prologue

Hastings, 1912

Stan entered stage left. Of course he did; he was the villain. Villains always enter from the left, the Good Fairy from the right. It’s the first law of pantomime. But, in this case, Stan Parks (the Wicked Baron) came running onto the stage in answer to a scream from Alice Dean (Robin Hood). He came quickly because Alice was not normally given to screaming. Even when Stan had tried to kiss her behind the flat depicting Sherwood Forest she hadn’t screamed; instead she had simply delivered an efficient uppercut that had left him winded for hours. So he responded to the sound, in his haste falling over two giant toadstools and a stuffed fox.

The stage was in semi-darkness, some of the scenery still covered in dustsheets. At first Stan could only make out shapes, bulky and somehow ominous, and then he saw Alice, kneeling centre stage, wearing a dressing gown over her green Principal Boy tights. She was still screaming, a sound that seemed to get louder and louder until it reached right up to the gods and the empty boxes. Opposite her something swung to and fro, casting a monstrous shadow on the painted forest. Stan stopped, suddenly afraid to go any further. Alice stopped screaming and Stan heard her say something that sounded like ‘please’ and ‘no’. He stepped forward. The swinging object was a bower, a kind of basket chair, where the Babes in the Wood were meant to shelter before being covered with leaves by mechanical robins (a striking theatrical effect). The bower should have been empty because the Babes didn’t rehearse in the afternoon. But, as Stan got closer, he saw that it was full of something heavy, something that tilted it over to one side. Stan touched the basket, suddenly afraid of its awful, sagging weight. And he saw Betsy Bunning, the fifteen-year-old girl who was playing the female Babe. She lay half in, half out of the swinging chair. Her throat had been cut and the blood had soaked through her white dress and was dripping heavily onto the boards.

It was odd. Later, Stan would go through two world wars, see sights guaranteed to turn any man’s blood to ice, but nothing ever disturbed him quite so much as the child in the wicker bower, the blood on the stage and the screams of the Principal Boy.

One

Brighton, 1951

It was snowing when Edgar Stephens woke up. The view from his window, the tottering Regency terraces leading down to the sea, was frosted and magical. But the sight gave him no pleasure at all. He hated snow. He still had nightmares about the Norway campaign, the endless march over the ice, his companions falling into the drifts to freeze where they lay, the moments when the bright white landscape seemed to rearrange itself into fantastical shapes and colours, the soft voices speaking from the frozen lakes: ‘Lie down and I’ll give you rest for ever.’ They hadn’t had the proper gear then either, reflected Edgar, pulling on a second pair of socks. The Norwegian troops had skis and fur jackets; the British had shivered in greatcoats and leaking boots. Well, he still didn’t have a pair of snow boots. It wasn’t something that you needed as a policeman in Brighton, generally speaking. But today was different. Today was the second day of searching for two lost children. A search made a hundred times grimmer and more desperate by the soft white flakes falling outside.

Edgar squeezed his multi-socked feet into his thickest shoes. Then he put on a fisherman’s jumper under his heaviest coat. As a final touch he added a Russian hat, given to him years ago by Diablo. He knew that he looked ridiculous (he must remember to take it off before he got to the station) but the hat made a surprising amount of difference. As he slipped and staggered down Albion Hill, holding on to parked cars and garden fences, his head at least remained warm. The Pavilion was a fairy-tale wonder of snowy domes and minarets. The Steine Gardens were smooth with snow but as Edgar tried to cross the road he slipped twice on hard-packed ice. As he limped down the alleyway by the YMCA building (once the home of Maria Fitzherbert, the secret wife of the Prince Regent, and said to be linked to the Pavilion by a secret tunnel), he wondered if they would be able to get any cars out at all. He’d have to get on to the army barracks in Dyke Road. Perhaps they would be able to lend him a jeep or two. They really needed to search on the downs and in the parks but the snow might make that impossible. The children had now been missing for forty hours.

When he reached Bartholomew Square, he was exhausted and his feet were soaking. In the lobby he met his sergeant, Bob Willis, apparently disguised as a deep-sea fisherman in waders and oilskins.

‘Nice hat, sir.’

Damn, he’d forgotten to take off the Russian hat. Edgar snatched it from his head, its wet fur feeling unpleasantly like a living animal.

‘Is anyone else in?’ he asked.

‘One or two,’ said Bob, sitting down and starting to pull off his waders. ‘The super’s snowed in in Rottingdean.’

‘Let’s hope he’s the only one. We need every man we can get.’

‘Charming.’ Turning round, Edgar saw Sergeant Emma Holmes, the latest recruit to CID and recipient of a lot of teasing about her name, her sex and just about everything else, really. Not that this seemed to bother her. She was unfailingly calm and professional. This, combined with her white-blonde hair and blue eyes, gave her an almost Nordic aspect although, as far as Edgar knew, she had been born and brought up in Brighton.

‘Man as in person,’ said Edgar, wondering if he was making things worse.

‘Why not just say person then?’ said Emma mildly, taking off her duffle coat.

Edgar was about to answer when Bob’s waders came off with a hideous squelching sound.

‘Let’s get ready for the morning meeting,’ he said.

At least he knew not to ask Emma to put the kettle on.

Edgar addressed the team promptly at nine. A few people had been delayed by the weather but most had struggled in, some of them walking long distances through the snow. Edgar knew that this was indicative of the strength of feeling about this case. As he summarised the investigation so far, he was aware that every eye was on him. These people cared, not just because they were police officers and it was their job to care. They cared because there were children involved and even the most unimaginative plod could put themselves in the position of parents waiting for news, watching the snow outside and knowing that it was covering up precious clues. Knowing, too, that their children were outside in the cold, alive or dead.

Mark Webster and Annie Francis had gone missing some time on Monday afternoon. Mark was twelve and Annie thirteen. They had come home from school and had spent some time playing with other local children in Freshfield Road, a long residential street that led all the way up to the racecourse. It was thought that Annie and Mark had then gone to the corner shop to buy sweets. The parents weren’t worried at first; the children were old enough to look after themselves after all. It wasn’t until night had fallen (early in these dark days of November) that Sandra Francis knocked on Edna Webster’s door and suggested searching for the truants. ‘I wanted to give Annie a good hiding for worrying us so much,’ Mrs Francis admitted to Edgar. ‘It wasn’t until later that I. . .’ Here she had broken down in tears, mopping them on the apron that was still tied around her waist.

The parents searched the surrounding streets and nearby Queen’s Park. It was nearly nine o’clock when they made their way to the home of Larry McGuire, a neighbour who was also a policeman. Sergeant McGuire had telephoned the station, who had contacted Edgar. He had met them at Bartholomew Square, given the usual assurances (‘Children go missing all the time . . . They’ll probably come home when they’re tired . . . Try not to worry too much’) and organised a search party. They had scoured the streets until midnight and again at first light. All Tuesday they had knocked on doors, from the seafront to the racecourse, even dredged the duck pond in Queen’s Park. Then, on Tuesday night, the snow had come.

The children’s ages had led some people to speculate that they might have run away together. ‘A kind of Romeo and Juliet thing,’ Superintendent Frank Hodges had suggested. But Edgar wasn’t buying that. He knew that Shakespeare’s Juliet was only thirteen (and he had actually read the play, which he betted Hodges hadn’t) but he didn’t think it fitted the picture of the two children playing in the street. ‘Annie isn’t like that,’ said Mrs Francis. ‘She’s a tomboy, if anything.’ Edgar tried not to register the use of the present tense. Annie had to be alive. He had never dealt with a case involving a dead child and he didn’t want to start now. Mark and Annie were friends, like brother and sister, everyone said; they had been friends from primary school. Edgar, who had been to an all-boys grammar school, thought how nice it would have been to have a friend who was a girl. It might have helped him understand women for a start.

No suspicious characters had been spotted in the area, he continued briskly. Anyone with a conviction involving minors had been checked and double-checked. It had been a winter afternoon, no one had paid much attention to the children playing in the twilight. ‘Annie always made up the games for the little ones,’ someone said. ‘She had ever such a good imagination.’ Her teachers had agreed. Annie Francis was clever, she was going somewhere. Mark Webster too, though quiet and shy for his age, was highly intelligent. Where were they now, those intelligent, innocent children?

‘Bob, you and Emma go back to Freshfield Road and talk to the neighbours again. Someone must have seen something.’

Bob would usually have complained about being sent door-to-door but today nobody was complaining, even if it meant tramping a mile in the snow.

‘And talk to the children again,’ said Edgar. ‘The ones that were playing with Mark and Annie on Monday afternoon. They may have been too nervous to talk yesterday, especially with their parents in the room. Try and get them on their own. Children always notice more than adults.’

‘Sergeant Holmes can do that,’ said Bob. ‘Children trust women more than men.’

Emma gave him an icy blue glare but said nothing.

‘No, you both go,’ said Edgar. ‘I’m sure you’re great with kids, Bob.’ In Edgar’s mind Bob was hardly more than a child himself. That was the trouble with the war: it had placed a great gulf between people like Edgar, who had served and, despite being only thirty-one, felt that he had aged several lifetimes, and people like Bob, who had just missed out on it.

‘I’ve managed to get hold of a couple of army jeeps from the barracks,’ he said. ‘You can take one up to Freshfield Road if it can manage the hill. We’ve got a few squaddies too and they can go up to the racecourse and start searching the wasteland there. I’m going to Hove to talk to the grandparents.’

‘Someone must have seen something,’ he told the team. ‘Someone always has. People don’t just disappear.’ As he said this, he thought of a magician leaning over a girl lying on a table. A swirl of his cloak and the girl has . . . disappeared. But that was magic; this was real life.

‘I saw the grandparents yesterday,’ said Bob.

The grandparents had been first on the list (children often run to their grandparents) but Edgar wondered whether Bob had got the best from the interview. Maybe it was a job for someone older. Right now he felt a hundred.

‘I want to talk to them again,’ he said. ‘We’ve got to keep asking questions until we get some answers.’

As the jeep began its slow process along the coast road, Edgar thought about the disappeared children. What had happened to them after they had set out to buy sweets? Had they been spirited away by some malignant power, some infernal deus ex machina? Or was the truth more prosaic? Had they wandered into the park and frozen to death under the bushes? The seafront was deserted, the snow swirling like a stage effect. The Christmas lights were on, casting eerie blue, green and red shadows. As they passed between the piers, Edgar saw the same poster again and again. A saturnine-looking man in a green robe holding aloft a glowing lamp. ‘Max Mephisto in Aladdin.’ ‘Fun for all the family.’ ‘Give me the lamp, boy!’ Wasn’t Abanazar a child-snatcher too?

And, all the way, the snow continued to fall.

Two

Max Mephisto hated snow. But then he liked to say that he hated all weather. He was happiest indoors, in a bar or a club or, best of all, in a theatre. When he dreamt of leaving the business (which was quite often these days), he knew that what he would miss most would not be the applause or the satisfaction of a neatly executed trick but that particular backstage smell—greasepaint and Calor gas and musty costumes—the same the world over. In a theatre the outside world didn’t matter. Rain or shine, it was always night-time in a theatre. But this winter it was hard to ignore the weather, and cold was what Max hated most. He wondered if this was a legacy from his long-dead Italian mother. Surely he was made for sun and fast cars and drinking Campari in roadside cafes, not for slogging through grey slush in his best shoes, sleeping with his overcoat on and, when he woke in the night, seeing his breath vaporising around him like the ectoplasm in Mamie Gordon’s fake medium act.

Max had chosen his lodgings in Upper Rock Gardens solely because they were the only theatrical digs available that boasted central heating. When he got to the thin, melancholy house with its shallow bay windows and aura of having seen better days, he discovered that the much-vaunted heating consisted of a single radiator in his attic bedroom. It was only on during the day, so when Max was rehearsing on the pier presumably the place was positively toasty but by the time he returned the radiator and the room were both icy cold.

On Wednesday morning Max looked out of his bedroom window and saw that the snow was still falling. The houses opposite—gracious Regency edifices like this one, now mostly flats and B&Bs—were barely visible and, at the bottom of the hill, the sea had merged into the grey sky. He surveyed the scene dourly, smoking his first cigarette of the day. Walking to the pier would be no fun in this weather but it was the technical rehearsal so he’d have to get there. The technical was important because he was performing several magic tricks in the show. It was the only thing that had resigned him to the role of Abanazar.

Max had always sworn that he would never do pantomime. It was the final straw, the end of the line, the graveyard of hopes. Ingénues past their prime, comedians who were no longer funny, acrobats getting a bit stiff in the knees—they were all to be found in the cast lists of Cinderella, Jack and the Beanstalk and Aladdin. Every summer the requests started coming in and every year Max refused them. He tried to take a break over Christmas, maybe even go abroad. Anything to get away from the men in drag, the baying children, the shouts of ‘Behind you!’ It was like some existential nightmare. Where’s the grim reaper? Behind you.

So why, this year, was Brighton’s Palace Pier Theatre advertising ‘for the first time ever’ Max Mephisto in Aladdin? Why were there posters all over the town showing him in a ghastly green robe waving a lamp that looked more like a gravy boat? Well, partly it was because the show was being produced by Bert Billington, a hugely influential show-business impresario. An invitation from Bert Billington was not to be turned down lightly, even if it involved wearing false whiskers and pushing an ageing Principal Boy into a papier mâché cave (crash of cymbals, green lightning, evil laugh). If Bert liked his performance, then he might book him for a tour of provincial Number Two theatres, maybe even a Number One. Then there was the appeal of Brighton itself. Max had always liked the town and now it was the home of his daughter, Ruby. Not to mention his old friend Edgar. But Ruby and Edgar presented an altogether different problem, one that he didn’t like to confront too often. Even so, a season in Brighton was not the same as Blackpool or somewhere in the frozen north. There were quite a few decent restaurants in Brighton.

Finally, the bitter truth was that work was thin on the ground these days, even for the great Max Mephisto. The new comedians were taking over and their baleful influence was everywhere. Magicians like Tommy Cooper were going on stage, getting the tricks deliberately wrong and—even worse—showing the audience how they were done. There was no mystique any more, no glamour. Then there was television. Apparently most families in America owned a set and, if TV’s popularity ever spread to Britain, variety would die quicker than you could say ‘abracadabra’. So, all in all, well-paid work from November to January was not to be sneezed at. And it was not as if he was playing Wishy Washy or Buttons. He was Abanazar, the Demon King, and the villain always had the best lines.

So Max dressed in his warmest clothes and prepared himself for the walk to the pier. He still had his beloved Bentley but that was locked in a garage in Kemp Town. Besides, cars would be no good today. In the hall he met his landlady, Joyce Markham, a dyed blonde with a head for business and a good line in sardonic banter.

‘Morning, Mr M. Lovely day.’

‘Indeed it is, Mrs M. Just going out for a stroll along the promenade.’

‘Mind you don’t get too chilled. I’ve known many a pro die from the cold in Brighton.’

‘That’s a jolly story, Mrs M. I’ll look forward to hearing it one evening.’

‘Are you not having breakfast? Can I press you to a kipper?’

‘Charming as that sounds . . .’ Max reached for his hat. Joyce eyed him with amusement. ‘Not exactly dressed for it, are you?’

Max looked down at his cashmere coat and brogues. ‘This is my arctic attire, Mrs M.’

‘I’ve got some gumboots that belonged to my late husband. Not that it did him any good, poor fool.’

Joyce always talked about her husband as if his death were some frivolous indulgence designed solely to inconvenience her. Max was horrified at the thought of the gumboots but there was no doubt that the snow wouldn’t do his shoes much good.

‘That would be very kind. Thank you.’

‘Don’t thank me, thank Arthur. If he can hear you where he is.’

‘Max Mephisto in gumboots. Never thought I’d live to see the day.’

‘Well, now you can die happy.’

Lou Abrahams, the stage manager, didn’t seem in a hurry to die. Chortling to himself, he put down his paper and retreated into his cubbyhole. Max hoped that he was making him a cup of coffee. He sat down and pulled off the boots. In their ugly, rural practicality they reminded him of his father, who liked nothing better than striding over fields looking for wildlife to kill. Still, there was no denying that they’d kept his feet dry. He took his brogues out of the paper bag given to him by Mrs M and put them on. He was feeling better. The smell of coffee was emanating from the cubbyhole and it was pleasantly warm in Lou’s office. He pulled the paper towards him. It was the local rag, the Evening Argus.

‘Desperate search for lost children’ screamed the headline. Max read on: ‘Police are continuing to search for Mark Webster and Annie Francis, who vanished yesterday whilst playing outside their homes in Freshfield Road, Kemp Town. The children were last seen walking to Sam Gee’s corner shop to buy sweets. Mr Gee says that the children never arrived. Detective Inspector Edgar Stephens, who is leading the hunt, says that the police will leave no stone unturned in their search for the missing youngsters. We know how much the parents must be suffering, said DI Stephens, and we ask everyone to be on the lookout for Mark and Annie.’

The paper was yesterday’s. Max thought of the snow covering Upper Rock Gardens. If the children were still outside, surely they’d be dead by now. He thought of Edgar continuing to search, marshalling his men, knowing that he would have to face the grieving parents at the end of the day. He would take it hard, Max knew. He didn’t think that Edgar would have used the cliché about ‘no stone unturned’ either.

Lou placed a cup of black coffee in front of him. ‘Terrible thing about those kiddies, isn’t it?’

‘Yes,’ said Max. ‘Terrible.’

‘They’ll be dead now, mark my words.’

‘Maybe not,’ said Max. He felt curiously reluctant to accept Lou’s gloomy prognosis, though it was what he’d been thinking a few moments ago. ‘They could just have run away. They could

Reviews for Smoke And Mirrors

[charlie68_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I quite liked it. It has good themes myths, pantomime, and fairy tales with engaging characters.

[mialro_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A collection of short stories (which I expected) and some poems (which I did not). Gaiman's poems are lovely and creepy, like his fiction. Some pieces were interesting (like the one about an author trying to negotiate with Hollywood people wanting to make his book into a movie and the H.P. Lovecraft-inspired pieces about the coming of Cthulhu and a werewolf) and some were too disturbing or confusing for me. I'd give it an average of 3.5 out of 5 stars.

[gbelik_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Another from the series about the magicians. Forgetable.

[zoes_human · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I would have preferred for the blurbs telling something of the writing and inspiration for every tale and poem have been at the start of the individual stories rather than being lumped together at the beginning of the book as part of the introduction.

[eyejaybee · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

While the principal protagonist of this novel is Detective Inspector Edgar Stephens, he is eclipsed in my recollection by his friend, Max Mephisto, the famous conjurer, who finds himself in the role of Abanazar in the production of Aladdin being staged on the Brighton Pier. Max Mephisto is constantly telling his friend to beware of falling prey to misdirection, which is the bedrock of the magician’s art. Elly Griffiths is, herself, a dab hand at misdirection, and even as a seasoned reader of mystery stories, she completely sol me the dummy at various stages throughout this story.Set in 1951, in a Britain still subject to post-war rationing, the story starts with the disappearance of two children, a boy and a girl, who go missing after having last been seen on their way to the local sweetshop. Winter has an icy hold over Brighton, and the pre-Christmas snow, and the disruption it causes to traffic and other aspects of life, lends a powerful sense of gloom to the story.The two children are far from normal. Both in early years at their respective grammar schools, it turns out that they are keen on drama. The young girl has been writing plays for the neighbourhood children to perform, while the boy seem entirely in thrall to her. The girl’s plays are alarmingly grown up, recounting familiar fairy tales, but emphasising the dark nature of their earliest forms – far closer to the version collected by the Brothers Grimm than the cheerier works of Hans Christian Andersen.There are several sub plots, and while serving perfectly well as a stand-alone book, it does build promisingly on the previous volume, The Zig Zag Girl.The themes are so bleak that I am not sure I could exactly say I enjoyed it, but I was completely engrossed, and having started reading it, was eager to push through to the denouement, even though I failed utterly to see the eventual solution.

[darthdeverell · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Neil Gaiman’s Smoke and Mirrors: Short Fictions and Illustrations collects short stories and poems that Gaiman previously published elsewhere. Among the more stand-out works are “The Wedding Present” – which Gaiman included in the introduction – “Chivalry” – about the Holy Grail, “Troll Bridge,” “The Goldfish Pool and Other Stories,” “Queen of Knives,” “Shoggoth’s Old Peculiar,” “Only the End of the World Again,” “Bay Wolf,” “We Can Get Them For You Wholesale,” “One Life, Furnished in Early Moorcock,” “The Sweeper of Dreams,” “Vampire Sestina,” “Murder Mysteries,” and “Snow, Glass, Apples.” The works are all haunting and sweet; they take the reader to new places and leave them changed after the reading. Two stories reference the works of Lovecraft, one the works of Michael Moorcock, and a few have been adapted into other works. Both “Troll Bridge” and “Snow, Glass, Apples” later became graphic novels, “Murder Mysteries” became both an audio drama and a comic book, and “We Can Get Them for You Wholesale” has been adapted a few times as independent films. Gaiman fans will love this collection of his early work.

[bobbybslax · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Quite the mixed bag here. I enjoyed about 4 or 5, was ambivalent about most, and against a few, so overall a moderate success, I think.

[melrailey-412132 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

It's no secret I'm a Neil Gaiman fan. Love the man. And his audiobooks are always fantastic and Smoke and Mirrors is no exception. Gaiman's narration is spot on. As always when I listen to him tell a story, it feels like he's letting me in on a secret. You know, telling me a special tale that not many people know. I'd heard many of the stories in this collection in other places; but lots were brand new to me. They also opened up some new insights into Neil Gaiman that I hadn't seen before. This collection highlights Gaiman's unique talent and masterful ability to tell a story.

[linyarai · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A great read by one of my favorite authors.

[sandyamcpherson · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Book 2 in the series featuring DI Edgar Stephens, and actor/magician Max Mephisto. A much better crafted tale than Zig Zag Girl, this continuing saga is set in Brighton, about a year later, around Christmastime, 1951. The story is very human and somewhat a sad account for the opening crime. However, the character development is admirable and the personalities were very engaging. A couple of the clues were casually dropped into the narrative that served to add an unexpected twist but derailed my guessing 'who-dun-it'. I was fooled right through to the end. It was a fast read, just when I needed it!

[smik_3 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I've found that I haven't read THE ZIG ZAG GIRL, which is the first in this series. This is something that I must remedy as I have thoroughly enjoyed this title. I did read THE VANISHING BOX, but I think my lower rating must have reflected my unfamiliarity with the earlier titles.This mystery is intriguing right from the start. Two children disappear playing together after school, one of them a very precocious writer who writes her own versions of fairy tales and then organises children to act them out. Her script is based on something she has worked out about her family.Once again plenty of red herrings which characterises well written mysteries.

[pgchuis · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Very enjoyable. This one was all about the case Edgar is working on with a new (female - was that even a thing in the 50s?) sergeant and an associated pantomime in which Max and Diablo are performing, with the wartime antics of the Magic Men mere background.

[shelleyraec · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The second book in Elly Griffiths series featuring DI Stephens, and actor/magician Max Mephisto is set in Brighton, about a year after the events in the Zig Zag Girl, during the winter of 1951. When two young children go missing, and are later found dead in a snow bank surrounded by sweets, DI Edgar Stephens, and his officers, Emma Holmes and Bob Willis, are tasked to investigate. With a frightened community demanding that the killer of “Hansel and Gretel” be found, and little evidence to go on, Stephens turns to his old friend Max for information after drawing a possible link to the theatrical scene.I was a little disappointed that Max didn’t have a larger role in Smoke and Mirrors. I enjoyed their partnership in The Zig Zag Girl, Edgar’s cynical nature contrasts well with Max’s flamboyance. Emma and Bob are solid characters though, and I liked learning more about them, particularly Emma’s experience as a female officer during the time period.The mystery in Smoke and Mirrors is well crafted, and interesting. Griffiths plays up the darker themes of Grimm’s fairytales to great effect, and skilfully injects red herrings to keep you guessing, One of the strengths of this series remains its sense of time and place. The author wonderfully evokes the social climate of post war England, and the ambience of Brighton.Smoke and Mirrors can be read as a stand alone, but the experience is richer if you are familiar with the first book. I hope there will be more.

[carlathelibrarian · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is the second in the DI Edgar Stephens and Magician Max Mephisto series. They have been friends since their stint in Norway as The Magic Men in WW2. As a child I read all the fairytales and never realized how dark and creepy they really were. This is a dark and creepy story that centres around the darkest of fairytales about wicked stepmothers, fathers discarding their children, wishing so hard for a child that it is only half human and the kidnapping and murder by evil witches.

It is November and Brighton is in the middle of Pantomine season. Max is staring as the evil genie in Aladdin performing magic tricks to make his role even better. Meanwhile, Edgar is organizing a search party to look for two missing children. The worst part is that they have had a terrible, unexpected snowstorm which makes searching even harder, yet frantic as they want to find the children before they freeze to death. Annie, a young writer of plays and her good friend and assistant, Mark went to buy candy for Annie's latest dark, fairytale-like play and never returned. A couple of days later, the children are found buried in the snow, with a trail of sweets leading to their bodies. Not only are the families of Annie and Mark devastated, the whole town is frightened to think there is a murderer in their midst. As the police continue their investigation, Edgar recruits Max to the case.

This story does not have as much of Max in it as the last one, but that is okay. It was still very interesting and had me guessing right to the end. Rose, Max's daughter makes an appearance as does his father. Emma, the local police detective, realizes some things about class and poverty that shake her up somewhat. It will be interesting to see if that goes any further in the next stories. The plot was well done and had me putting other things aside so I could see what was going to happen next. Another great addition to the Stephens & Mephisto series.

[aratiel · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

At that moment, Neil Gaiman became her favorite author of all time.

[forevermasterless · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

While looking back through the various short story collections I've read, I realized I hadn't wrote any sort of review for this one, even though I did write a review for Neil's second collection, Fragile Things. I don't know how I let that slide.

Well, I'm writing the review now. I think this is one of the most even collections I've read. I don't know that it has the highest concentration of great stories, but it was by far the most consistent, with none of the stories being bad or forgettable. I also thought the poems were generally better than those in Fragile Things, even though that collection has the poem Instructions, which is my favorite of all Neil's poems.

To prove it, here are my personal top five from this collection, presented in the order that they appear, using memories that are fast approaching three years of age.

Chivalry
One of the best things about Gaiman is how he uses folklore and myth to tell modern tales with modern sensibilities. This is one of the best examples of that. This is a story about a knight seeking the holy grail, and the old lady who has it on her mantlepiece. A fantastic 'what if' sort of story that shows what it might be like if all the magical objects of power from our myths and legends really existed, and how unimportant they might be if pulled from the realm of myth, despite their powers.

Troll Bridge
A bittersweet story about a boy who runs into a troll and gets away by convincing the troll that he'll be 'tastier' if he leaves and comes back with more life experience, only to eventually give himself up to the troll when his life doesn't work out the way he expected. The best thing about this story is how it makes you really feel the passage of time. It's like how you sometimes dream that you've lived out an entire lifetime, even though you've really only been dreaming for minutes. Gaiman is uniquely gifted in being able to make that come across with the written word, but I think this story is the one that did it best.

Changes
What if you could take a pill to change your sex at will? Do I really need to say anything else to make you want to read this?

Shoggoth's Old Peculiar
A story about the Lovecraft mythos that is oddly compelling, despite the fact that I had never read any of Lovecraft's work before reading this. In fact, this story is what made me buy an omnibus of his work, and while I still haven't read the whole thing I still consider myself a Lovecraft fan, and this story is what turned me into one.

We Can Get Them For You Wholesale
A story about a man who wants to kill his girlfriend because she's been cheating on him. He looks through the phone book to find an assassin, and winds up with a number that he really shouldn't be calling.

[nbmars · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is the second book in a mystery series featuring Detective Edgar Stephens by Elly Griffiths, who also writes the Ruth Galloway mystery series, one of my favorites. This series is set in post-World War II England. Detective Inspector Edgar Stephens of the Brighton police previously served in a World War II group based in Scotland known as “The Magic Men” assigned with creating false trails for the Germans. Some of the others in his group, particularly Max Mephisto and Stan Parks, continue to be a part of Edgar’s life.In this book, two young children, Annie and Mark, have been killed, with their deaths staged to suggest the Hansel and Gretel story. And in fact, Annie and Mark worked together to put on plays along with their friends, with fairy tales being a common theme.Edgar, along with his police sergeants Bob Willis and Emma Holmes, are desperate to find the killer, since they know such criminals tend not to strike only once. But the Christmas holidays are approaching, along with the accompanying snow, ice, and cold, to cover up any trails or evidence.Edgar feels like he has all the pieces to the puzzle, but hasn’t been able to put it together: “The truth was there, he was sure of it; it was just hard to see. Smoke and mirrors, Max would say. What was real and what was illusion?”The question is whether he can figure it out in time before another child is harmed.Discussion: Griffiths does her research well to bring as much verisimilitude as possible to the time and place of her books. She does a great job of bringing the post-war world to life, as well as the world of magicians and what it was like to perform on the road during the last years before television took over the entertainment world. Also, as with her other series, she limns characters with complex psyches showing a mix of self-awareness, self-delusion, and self-deprecation that make them seem like actual people we all can recognize. I don’t like this series as much as her Ruth Galloway books, but it is still entertaining, and worth following.Evaluation: Once again the author employs the “misdirection” of magic as a criminal tactic as well as a plot device (in the sense of red herrings and other false trails). I look forward to more stories in this series.

[cburnett5 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Smoke and Mirrors was a very entertaining read. I am a huge fan of Elly Griffiths’ other series, the Ruth Galloway mysteries, and was really excited to read this one. I did not read the first in the series yet though I have it on my bookshelf. I had no trouble picking up the storyline with Smoke and Mirrors and didn’t feel like I was missing anything because I had not read the first one in the series.The main story takes place in Brighton, England in 1951. Two children disappear and are subsequently found murdered. DI Edgar Stephens and magician Max Mephisto team up to solve this horrible crime which is dubbed the Hansel and Gretel crime. I always have a little trouble with stories involving missing and murdered children. Thankfully, while that was the crime at issue here, much of the book focused on the Panto being performed at the local theatre, starring Max, and a variety of fairy tales. Those were my favorite parts by far. The details related to the Panto, the actors involved and the roles they played, were fascinating. Griffiths even included a copy of the poster advertising the show at the beginning of the book. That was a great add.Smoke and Mirrors is well worth reading, and I recommend to anyone who likes mysteries and/or theatre. I also highly recommend her Ruth Galloway series. Thanks to Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and NetGalley for the chance to read this novel in exchange for an honest review.

[lostinalibrary · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

In 1950s Brighton, two children go missing near Christmas and, despite the hopes of their families and the community, their snow-covered bodies are eventually found. DI Edgar Stephens and his team are determined to find the killer or killers but, with only one major clue to go, it won’t be easy. The bodies are surrounded by a trail of sweets as if staged to resemble perhaps Hansel and Gretel, a possible hint either, perhaps, to point suspicion at the local sweet shop owner or to a play the children had written and were rehearsing called The Stolen Child. Could a fairy tale hold the key to this murder? Smoke and Mirrors is author EIly Griffiths’ second historical mystery featuring DI Stephens and magician Max Mephisto. It seems somehow wrong to call a story about the murder of children quirky and entertaining but, in fact, it is – very. Perhaps this is because Griffiths, rather than depicting the gruesomeness of the crime instead distracts the reader from its horrors by focusing on the characters, the time period, the surroundings, and the theatre, both the children’s play and the pantomime, and, of course, the myriad clues and red herrings strewn throughout. Or perhaps it’s because there is as much a theatrical feel to the murders themselves as there is to the novel overall – to quote the Bard, in this novel ‘the play’s the thing’ that captures the interest of the reading audience as easily as it will lead to the capture of our fictional murderer.Thanks to Edelweiss and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt for the opportunity to read this novel in exchange for an honest review

[cathyskye · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

As she did in The Zig-Zag Girl, Elly Griffiths takes us to 1950's Brighton, England and the slightly seedy world of the theater and magic and pantomime. It's a world I know very little about, so I enjoy learning about it through Griffiths' eyes.Griffiths has created an excellent mystery, one that many times had me wishing I remembered more of Grimms' Fairy Tales, but (as usual) the real strength in this book lies in her characters. I found little Annie to be fascinating. She was such an interesting character that I thought she was wasted as a victim; I wanted to see more of her. We also learn more about the personal lives of Stephens and Mephisto, which will answer some questions readers may have. I found the focus of Smoke and Mirrors to be much more in the present day and on Edgar and his investigation. I missed the spice that "more Max" gives to the action as well as talk of what the two men did during World War II, although I know the series can't get stuck back in that time frame. It will be very interesting indeed to see where the author's focus shifts to next as the series progresses.

[altheaann · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Initially read in 1999 or thereabouts. Not reviewed at the time.

Upon re-reading:

***** “The Goldfish Pond and Other Stories” by Neil Gaiman
I'm usually not that interested in the whole 'glamour of Hollywood' theme, but this is probably the best commentary on it I've ever read.
Clearly partially autobiographical, this tells the story of a British writer who's flown out to L.A. to talk about converting his bestselling novel into a movie. A shifting cast of film execs gradually morph his story past recognition. Meanwhile, he gets to know the elderly groundskeeper at his decaying hotel, who tells him stories of the glory days of silent films.
Multi-layered, ironically humorous, but ultimately poignant. Beautifully done.


_____

Other included pieces (from the wiki).

"The included stories and poems are different between some of the editions. The US, UK, and eBook editions have some differences in the stories they contain (see table to right):

†Not in US print version
‡Not in eBook version
*Appears in eBook version as Apple
Reading the Entrails
The Wedding Present
Chivalry - written for an anthology by Marty Greenberg
Nicholas Was...
The Price
Troll Bridge - retelling of The Three Billy Goats Gruff written for the anthology Snow White, Blood Red by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling
Don't Ask Jack
Eaten (Scenes from a Moving picture) †‡
The White Road - A narrative poem
Queen of Knives - A narrative poem
The Facts in the Case of the Departure of Miss Finch †‡
Changes
The Daughter of Owls
Shoggoth's Old Peculiar
Virus - Written for the anthology Digital Dreams by David Barrett
Looking for the Girl - Commissioned by Penthouse for their 20th anniversary issue
Only the End of the World Again
Bay Wolf - A story poem retelling Beowulf
Fifteen Painted Cards from a Vampire Tarot †
We Can Get Them For You Wholesale
One Life, Furnished in Early Moorcock - Written for an anthology of Elric stories by Michael Moorcock
Cold Colors
The Sweeper of Dreams
Foreign Parts
Vampire Sestina - A poem originally published in Fantasy Tales and later reprinted in the Mammoth Book of Vampires by Stephen Jones
Mouse - written for Touch Wood, edited by Pete Crowther
The Sea Change
How Do You Think It Feels? †‡
When We Went to See the End of the World by Dawnie Morningside, age 11¼
Desert Wind
Tastings - Included in Sirens by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling
In the End †*
Babycakes
Murder Mysteries - written for the anthology Midnight Graffiti by Jessie Horsting
Snow, Glass, Apples

[carol420 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

From Book Jacket:

The distinctive storytelling genius of Neil Gaiman has been acclaimed by writers as diverse as Norman Mailer and Stephen King. Now in this new collection of stories--several of which have never before appeared in print and more than half that have never been collected--that will dazzle the senses and haunt the imagination. Miraculous inventions and unforgettable characters inhabit these pages: an elderly widow who finds the Holy Grail in a second-hand store...a frightened little boy who bargains for his life with a troll living under a bridge by the railroad tracks...a stray cat who battles nightly against a recurring evil that threatens his unsuspecting adoptive family. In these stories, Gaiman displays the power, wit, insight and outrageous originality that has made him one of the most unique literary artists of our day.

My Thoughts:

Neil Gaiman doesn't write horror stories... he writes magic...stories that wrap you up in what your parents told you for years was impossible or unreal. Some of the samplings that I really enjoyed were..."Snow, Glass, Apples"....this is not your grandmother's Snow White, and Gaiman himself states that he hopes the reader will not read the original fairy tale the same way ever again. He succeeds. "Chivalry"... a brilliant, extremely funny look into the mind of an elderly woman who has found the Holy Grail in a secondhand store and think it's a perfect doo-dad for her mantel, never mind that Arthurian knight who keeps hounding her for it. A tip to anyone who is in the habit of skipping book introductions....Gaiman actually hides a story within the introduction of this book as a payoff to those who religiously read the introduction. That sort of cleverness suckers me in every time.

[geraniumcat · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Elly Griffiths has taken a new turn in this new series, after her Ruth Galloway novels, with a period setting, Brighton in the early 1950s. Max Mephisto is starring in pantomime - Aladdin - when two local children disappear. His old friend DI Edgar Stephens is in charge of the investigation, and turns to Max when it looks as though some of the pantomime cast might be involved. When the children's bodies are discovered in the snow both locals and cast are implicated. And is the children's interest in fairytales significant?I didn't enjoy this series as much as the Ruth Galloway books, but both theatrical setting and period work well; in some of the scenes which took place actually in the theatre, I was reminded of Ngaio Marsh, which is always a good thing, and I feel that Griffiths has something to build on here. If I have a gripe, it's that the characters are all a little too bland, and although the female detective sergeant should have been a positive addition, I really wasn't convinced by her. Would she really have made it to sergeant? I want her to be a successful character, even if such a thing would probably be out of period, but she doesn't cut it. And I don't empathise with any of them much, sadly.Then there's Edgar's girlfriend (and Max's daughter). For a start, I can't stand the name Ruby, but that, at least, is my problem. But there is no chemistry between Edgar and Ruby, and not much of a relationship between Ruby and Max, but again, I just don't care very much.Other reviewers have clearly loved this new series, so my opinion shouldn't count for too much. And I did finish it, although it took me quite a while for a relatively short book - it's a successful novel in that sense. I'm just not excited by it, and probably won't read any more. Just have to hope for another Ruth Galloway novel!My copy was courtesy of the splendid NetGalley.

[benkline · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Another good selection of short fiction from Neil Gaiman.

[chris_el-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

A book of Short stories. I liked the one about the chap trying to hire an assassin for his ex the best. Gaimen is a author that throws twists in his writing that you don't see coming. :)

[edward.lorn · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

SMOKE AND MIRRORS Review, or My Final Review For a While I'm a Neil Gaiman fanboy. I've loved all of his novels and a great deal of his short fiction, but this collection was marred with either lackluster outings or poems I couldn't enjoy because I personally don't understand what makes them poems. The latter is my own fault, and I do not hold it against the author. The former, on the other hand, is all Gaiman's fault. Many of these stories lack purpose, are nothing more than words compiled into sentences and paragraphs. I can dig tales that have no definitive ending, or open endings, as it were, but when a piece of fiction has no reason whatsoever I fail to understand how or why it made it to print. Gaiman goes into great detail about how each of the stories in this collection came to be, and I can't help but wonder if the editors who requested a number of these stories only paid for them because they'd asked Gaiman for something and he delivered. Then, said editors felt responsible, perhaps thinking, "Well, we did ask for... something, and he did deliver." The biggest culprit here being the first outing, "Chivalry", wherein nothing happens other than a knight decked out in full armor (in modern times, mind you) trying time and time again to procure the holy grail from a stubborn old woman. In the end, Good Knight Galaad gets his grail and the reader's left wondering exactly what the hell was the story's purpose? There's no conflict, no tension, no drama, no twist, and not even a hint of climax. "Chivalry" accomplished nothing aside from making me slam my forehead into my desk in an attempt to knock the banality of the tale from my conscious mind. I think that, had I read SMOKE AND MIRRORS instead of listening to the audio book, I would have disliked far more of these stories than I did. Gaiman brought a certain whimsical panache to lesser tales, making them a great deal more interesting (e.g. "Troll Bridge", "Shoggoth's Old Peculiar" and "We Can Get Them for You Wholesale"). I think this came from knowing how the author felt the dialogue and prose should be read in order to get the most from the verbiage.

The stories that made me want to stick ice picks in my ears were: "Chivalry", "Don't Ask Jack", "The Daughter of Owls", and "One Life, Furnished in Early Moorcock". I didn't simply dislike these stories, I downright loathed them. Even Gaiman's narration seemed dull, as if he were apologizing for their existence by phoning in his performance.

The tales that stood out are as follows: "The Price", "Troll Bridge", "The Goldfish Pool and Other Stories", "Changes", "Shoggoth's Old Peculiar" (which didn't have a purpose either, but was enjoyable nonetheless because of the odd characters), "Only the End of the World Again". "Bay Wolf", "We can Get Them for You Wholesale", and "Mouse". Basically, half the collection was worth my time. Everything else was either meaningless or downright boring. Still, not a single entry in SMOKE AND MIRRORS matched the brilliance of his novels. I was hoping for short stroies on par with CORALINE or THE OCEAN AT THE END OF THE LANE or AMERICAN GODS. Sadly, I was disappointed.

All other stories not mentioned above were wholly unmentionable or entirely forgettable. Meaning, I couldn't even be bothered to complain about them.

In summation: If you're looking for a collection packed with amazing short stories, you can do far better than this. SMOKE AND MIRRORS is not the worst short story collection I've read, but it comes close. When Gaiman is on, he's terrific and magical and wonderfully creative, but when he's bad, sweet baby Tom Cruise, he'll make you want to castrate him with a rusty battleaxe then boil the dismembered bits in a vat of acid. Still, this grouping of fiction is well written. Even the worst of these tales are readable, which cannot be said for every short story author. Instead of this, I recommend ANANSI BOYS, THE GRAVEYARD BOOK, AMERICAN GODS, CORALINE (and, no, it's not only a children's book), THE OCEAN AT THE END OF THE LANE, or any of Gaiman's other novels. I highly recommend his series of SANDMAN comics, if you can get your hands on them, that is. If you would like a better collection from a different author, try BOOKS OF BLOOD, by Clive Barker (in my opinion, Barker is much better at short fiction than he'll ever be as a novelist), SKELETON CREW, by Stephen King, and any collection by Ray Bradbury.

2.5 out of 5 severely disappointed stars. (If you're reading this on Goodreads, I've rounded up to three.)

[ladypembroke · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This collection is one that I never got around to reading when it was first published years ago. I am sorry I took so long to do so, and it reminded me anew that short stories are really in Neil Gaiman's wheelhouse. It amazes me how such short pieces can leave you breathless with fear, sorrow, laughter, shock. But they did. I don't want to pick a favourite because I made sure to read them all one at a time, taking breaks in between, so that they were each savoured for what they were. I can no more claim a favourite story than I can a song -- each had its own meaning and flavour. Each tasted wonderful.

More please.

[mrslee_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

As with many of Gaiman's works, I found myself loving some of the stories in this collection, feeling "meh" about most, and loathing a couple of them. The few I loved were magical, entertaining, causing me to ask, "What if?" These were:A Wedding PresentChivalryThe PriceShoggoth's Old PeculiarWe Can Get Them for you WholesaleVampire SestinaSnow, Glass, ApplesA couple of the stories I was in love with until the end, which made either no sense to me, or was a great let down.When We Went to See the End of the WorldMurder MysteriesThe rest of the stories either left me cold or nauseated me because they focused on the grime, the dirt, the sickness of the human condition without any hope or thought of the glory of it. When I read the Sandman series, my daughter edited them for me, knowing my aversion to hopelessness. I should have had her pre-read these as well.

[flying_monkeys_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Rating: 3 of 5I borrowed Smoke and Mirrors primarily to read "Snow, Glass, Apples," which turned out to be a brilliant retelling of Snow White from the Evil Queen's POV. I gave it 5 stars!The rest of the collection, however, was just okay. The only other story that really engaged my interest was "Don't Ask Jack" which supported my reluctance to ever play with a Jack-in-the-Box. I'd give that one 4 stars. "We Can Get Them for You Wholesale" was a black comedy about obsessive bargain hunters. I could so picture extreme couponers in that scenario. "Babycakes" would be best appreciated by vegetarians, vegans, and animal rights activists. Or anyone who connects with that saying about judging a nation by how it treats its animals.My favorite thing about this collection - other than the excellent "Snow, Glass, Apples" - was the Introduction in which Gaiman offered up a bit of background for each story.

[comfypants · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

There are two or three good stories, but it's mostly filler. It reminds me of Douglas Adams' Salmon of Doubt: a lot of half-finished drafts and things found lying around - a collection of enough things to make a book, not a book of things written to be in a book.