1934, and playwright Bertie Carroll is in the West End, but his reputation as a sleuth (as he solved a murder in Death On The Pier – which I haven’t read) is preceding him, as his long-time rival playwright Alice Crawford has called on him for help. An announcement has appeared in the London paper, claiming that someone will be murdered on stage in the third act.

When the play finishes without incident, it looks like the note was a joke. But when the leading man is found dead in his dressing room, with everyone having an ironclad alibi, it falls to Bertie and his friend Inspector Hugh Chapman to get to the bottom of things.

Uh-oh… according to Amazon, this is “perfect for fans of Richard Osman, Robert Thorogood and, of course, Agatha Christie” which is usually not a good sign. But it is clear that Jamie West is something of a student of Christie’s style as this gets a lot closer than most.

The book does claim the crime is an “impossible murder” but it’s more of a “no one could have done it” rather than the body being found in a room locked from the inside sort of thing… Having said that, the trick that the murderer uses is right out of the traditional playbook. It’s a variation of something that I’ve seen a couple of times before, and it’s odd that the impossible aspect isn’t played up a bit more as it’s a nicely simple and clever solution. There are even clues…

On to the characters, and the theatre background and characters are beautifully created and distinct. Bertie himself is a lovely character, and his friendship – or possibly more – with Hugh is very well done. The pedantic might point out that it’s not the sort of thing that would have turned up in a Golden Age book, but despite this, the book reads like something from the classic crime era – a number of suspects and motives, clues… I’d have preferred a slightly more surprising murderer but I was having a lot of fun with this so didn’t really care.

As I said, this is the second book in the series, following Death On The Pier. It’s pretty safe to say that I’ll be taking a look at that very soon.

Murder At The Matinee will be released on 5^th September in paperback and ebook from Brabinger. Many thanks for the review copy via NetGalley.