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A review by jmatkinson1
The Vanishing Box by Elly Griffiths
5.0
A young florist is found murdered in her room, naked and posed like the Delacroix painting of Lady Jane Grey. For DI Edgar Stephens the coincidence with the arrival in Brighton of a troupe of tableau artistes is too obvious to ignore. Meanwhile Max Mephisto is looking forward to a TV show he is about to make with his daughter Ruby. When Max's lover becomes another victim of the killer the deaths become very close to home. Edgar is worried about his relationship with Ruby, they are engaged but can a small town policeman support the ambitions of a talented performer, and harbours feelings for his colleague Emma.
Elly Griffiths has done it again. She is a writer who really engages the reader and transports them to a time and a place, in this case 1950s Brighton and the life of a vaudeville performer. In the wrong hands this could becomes a very 'comfy' series of novels but Griffiths is a master of underpinning her writing with an air of menace. This Brighton is not a cosy seaside idyll but home to people living on the edge of existence in post-war austerity. The characters are developing nicely however a lot of loose ends are tied up at the end of this novel and I fear there won't be another in the sequence - roll on the next setting!
Elly Griffiths has done it again. She is a writer who really engages the reader and transports them to a time and a place, in this case 1950s Brighton and the life of a vaudeville performer. In the wrong hands this could becomes a very 'comfy' series of novels but Griffiths is a master of underpinning her writing with an air of menace. This Brighton is not a cosy seaside idyll but home to people living on the edge of existence in post-war austerity. The characters are developing nicely however a lot of loose ends are tied up at the end of this novel and I fear there won't be another in the sequence - roll on the next setting!