The Vanishing Box offers another intriguing installment in the Ruth Galloway series, with a nostalgic look into the world of 1950s stage magic. The story blends historical elements with a cozy mystery, but it might not be the strongest entry in the series. While the characters remain charming, the plot lacked the suspense and complexity of previous books. The pacing can be slow at times, with the mystery unraveling in a somewhat predictable manner. However, fans of the series will likely enjoy the familiar atmosphere and the continued development of the main characters, even if this particular story doesn't quite reach the heights of earlier novels.

I really like the Ruth Galloway series by the author but I am not so keen on this series featuring DI Edgar Stephens. It's a period crime drama set in the 50's and it all felt just a bit rushed towards the end. The characters are interesting, especially Max the Magician and there are touches of humour which makes this a nice, cosy read, just not my favourite. Thanks to Net Galley for my ARC.

Great story, thrilling plot that I could not put down. Well worth a read, and would recommend to others.

Fourth in the Magic Men police procedurals set in 1950's Brighton. DI Edgar Stephens again teams up with magician Max Mephisto to solve a series of theatrical killings. A well staged crime thriller.

Absolutely love this series , love the characters and the plot , thought this might have been the last in the series, but great news another to come

Just loved this book. Great mystery and set at an interesting time with engaging characters. What more is there to say? Sit down and lose a few hours in indulgent reading.

I loved this, it's the best of the Stephens and Mephisto books so far I think. Very evocative, I loved the story and the theatre girls involved, I liked seeing Max lose his heart, and I love Emma a lot!

During the Second World War Edgar Stephens served with a specialist Army unit known as The Magic Men. They were tasked with finding ways to mislead the enemy (almost an early example of Fake News), these adventures are covered in more detail in the first Stephens and Mephisto book The Zig-Zag Girl. It was during this unusual posting that Edgar Stephens met Max Mephisto and a strong friendship was formed.

I have loved all four books which have been released in the Stephens and Mephisto series and I highly recommend them, particularly for readers who enjoy retro/classic stories as these books are set in the early 1950’s and Elly Griffiths captures the sense of time and location wonderfully. It is worth noting that all four books can be enjoyed as stand-alone stories but characters are developed over the course of the series and the reward for returning readers will be seeing these loved characters interacting and their relationships growing.

I felt The Vanishing Box was the most emotive of the books thus far (no spoilers though) and certain events through the story had such a powerful impact upon me that I lost myself to 1950’s Brighton for far longer than I may have originally intended.

Stephens is tracking another murderer, there is a connection to the theatre where Max Mephisto and his daughter are preparing for one of the biggest shows of their respective careers – TV is beckoning. One of the other acts on the bill is a performance art piece where young women (in very little clothing) are stood on stage to depict powerful women from history. The scandalous nature of their attire draws the crowds as 1950’s Brighton avail themselves of the opportunity to be outraged. Tragedy will befall this act though as one of their number is found dead in their lodgings.

Stephens and colleagues will have to unpick the relationships between the women, establish if a suitor may have come a calling and try to determine why the dead girl also appears posed in a particular manner. Elly Griffiths writes great crime thrillers and this is a top notch police procedural where readers get to follow along with the investigation as it unfolds.

I love the time I spend with Stephens and Mephisto each year and events in The Vanishing Box may have shaken up the path our heroes may follow in future. Already looking forward to the next chance to return to Brighton.

It’s great that We have another series from Elly Griffith. More to catch up on. I love the mystery and The personal relationships colouring everyone’s approach to events. The Brighton setting and period detail make this another candidate for TV adaptation. The sign of a good read is being a bit sad to finish it and I was.

Loved this book from first turn of the page,a great read very atmospheric well written,like all her books.

This fourth Stephens and Mephisto mystery takes the reader to a snowy 1950s Brighton, where, as always when these two old army comrades are together, the glamour of theatre life rubs shoulders with murder. In her boarding-house room, Lily Burtenshaw's body is found, posed to resemble a famous painting of an historical event. Only nineteen years old, Lily was a quiet, shy girl, who worked at a local flowershop, but the positioning of her dead body bears a resemblance to the 'tableaux' presented by the 'living statues' act currently engaged at the Hippodrome Theatre. Surely there couldn't be a connection between them? Maybe Lily was mistakenly killed by someone who assumed she was one of the female performers temporarily staying at the same boarding-house? It's a disturbing, unlikely crime for Brighton, and the leads uncovered by DI Edgar Stephens seem to take him only to blind alleys. Max meanwhile has been befriended by one of the 'living statues', an unlikely move given their respective ages, and one which he treats with a degree of scepticism, but maybe this young, attractive woman can shed light on the identity of Lily's murderer ...

Elly Griffiths has again transported the reader back to a time which feels like it ought to be gentler and more innocent - after all, it snows for Christmas - but seems more to balance on a knife-edge between glamorous and sordid - the (almost) nude performers are only allowed if they stand rigidly still, complying with a ruling which deems them 'artistic' rather than 'rude'. Human nature being what it is though, particularly in crime novels, someone always finds themselves driven to murder.

After an excess of psychological thrillers and domestic noir, I'm finding myself increasingly drawn back to the whodunnit school of crime fiction - perhaps because it's presented more as a puzzle to solve. Someone is murdered, the police, perhaps with the assistance of an interested 'bystander' such as Miss Marple or Max Mephisto, set about finding the culprit, and, after a number of dead ends and red herrings, find him or her. That's not to say there isn't tension, but it's not the over the top nerve-racking suspense of a psychological thriller. Elly Griffiths' stories fit me perfectly, whether the Ruth Galloway series mixing archaeology and murder in modern-day Norfolk, or this Stephens and Mephisto '50s set series.
There's a nice balance between the two aspects of the story - the crime-solving and the personal lives of the 'regular' characters - which makes this possible to read as a stand-alone novel while it fits into a longer story-arc of the characters personal lives - and much as in the Ruth Galloway series, it's difficult to anticipate which route those lives will take.

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!

For the Mephisto and Stephens mysteries, Elly Griffiths set herself quite the challenge: all the books are set in post-War Brighton (by now the mid-50s), a great atmospheric setting, and all involve the theatre and – even more specifically – a magician called Max Mephisto. She’s certainly not running out of ideas yet. (You can see blogposts on the earlier entries on the series here, or by clicking on the Mephisto label below: many of Griffiths' fabulous Ruth Galloway series are on the blog also.)

In this case a young woman has been murdered in her room in a seaside boarding-house: the other lodgers include some currently playing in a variety show at the Brighton Hippodrome. More crimes follow, and there seems to be a connection with the girls’ act of historical tableaux. The Vanishing Box is a piece of apparatus central to one of Mephisto’s best tricks. How to make a young woman (or anyone else) disappear.

Edgar Stephens is investigating, with his assistants Emma and Bob. Edgar is engaged to Ruby, who is Max’s daughter, and is another magician. Solving the murders involves – happily – many visits to both the theatre and the boarding-house. We get to know the inhabitants well, and the settings and the whole town of Brighton come very much alive: Griffiths does a marvellous job creating the atmosphere of the mid-50s.

The story twists and turns, and even when you think you can guess something you can be wrong…

As ever, Griffiths does the culture clash between police and theatre exceptionally well. I love the horrible terrifying ventriloquist’s dummy, and PC Bob’s horror when one of the male dancers ‘actually called him darling’. Ruby, in a fur hat and coat, visits the police station and brings ‘colour and glamour… as if someone had switched on the Christmas lights.’

This is another great entry in the series – the best so far I thought. There is considerable resolution in the private lives of the continuing characters, which I very much hope doesn’t mean an end to the series. Incidentally, these books – unlike the Ruth Galloway ones – are written in the ordinary past tense, something that I (along with many crime fiction fans) prefer.

As it happens, I love the books, but even if I didn’t I would enjoy looking for theatrical posters to illustrate them. I must have looked at (at least) a thousand theatrical pictures of one kind and another during the life of the blog, many of them memorable and beautiful. So I can say with confidence that magicians or illusionists have by far the best posters - miracles of colour, power and unsettling ambience. You can see some great ones on the blog here, here, here and here.

The poster would seem to show the magician Kellar with his own vanishing box: I actually used a different poster for the same magician for an earlier Mephisto mystery, The Zig Zag Girl.

The other picture shows Brighton in the snow.

Brilliant as always - I hope she never stops writing these books. Also so glad about the ending ;) this series is accessible and easy to read for all ages, teen upwards. The setting of Brighton post war is fantastic and always so well described and convincing. Characters are also so imaginable

I'm a big fan of Stephens and Mephisto (not to mention Ruth Galloway, Elly Griffiths' other creation). The period setting gives a great atmosphere, and the recurring characters are like friends now with this being the fourth book in the series.

The central murder mystery is suitably complex and creepy, but the best bit is the relationships between the central characters. So glad the Edgar/Ruby/Emma love triangle is finally resolved.

Thanks Netgalley and the Publisher. I love reading anything by this author and Stephens and Mephisto did not disappoint again. The period in which these books are set are believable and fascinating. Role on No. 5

This is another outing for that combination of policeman, Edgar Stephens, and stage magician, Max Mephisto, and their friends and colleagues, set in 1950s Brighton.
The 1950s setting highlights people whose lives were changed by the war, Edgar, who didn’t go back to university, but became a policeman, the musical director who didn’t feel able to study music after his experiences, and the women, who were now finding more opportunities, and freedom to choose careers, and the changing attitudes.

This time, the mystery revolves around a nude “tasteful” tableau show, which is on the same bill as Max and his daughter Ruby.
A local florist is murdered, she shared a rooming house with some of the girls from the show.
As Edgar investigates, more bodies pile up, and the connection to the show seems to become stronger.
Max finds himself attracted to Florence, one of the show girls who wants to be a script writer, and this makes him re-examine his life.

The ending is tense, with danger for several people, some changing relationships, and the murderer unmasked, not guessed by me!

I hope this isn’t the last outing for this pair, and look forward to reading more about them.

Thanks to Netgalley and Quercus Books for the opportunity to read this book.

Thanks Quercus Books and netgalley for this ARC.

Decisions, mad men, and push comes to shove over everything. This book changes the whole series hopefully for the better.

Another excellent, impeccably researched and atmospheric crime thriller from Elly Griffiths

This is the fourth outing of the “Magic Men” and it's great to be back with the rich cast of characters.

Christmas 1953. Max Mephisto and his daughter Ruby are headlining Brighton Hippodrome as a murder takes place in a guest house used by some of the girls in the show . Max's friend from their wartime days and Ruby's fiancee DI Edgar Stephens investigates.

Loads of strong characters here and excellent period details that provide and enjoyable and compelling British whodunit.

Elly Griffiths continues to capture a seedy, down at heel feel of 1950's Brighton expertly creating another highly readable atmospheric crime thriller, with a great sense of time and place, but is the end of the "magic men"........? - I hope not!

My thanks go to NetGalley and the Publisher for the chance to read an advance copy of this book.

Staging a murder...

It's a cold and snowy December in the Brighton of 1953, and magician Max Mephisto has top billing in the variety show at the Hippodrome, along with his new stage partner, his daughter Ruby. Ruby's fiancé, DI Edgar Stephens, has to put his plans to see the show on hold when a girl is found murdered in one of the many boarding houses in this seaside resort. Nineteen-year-old Lily Burtenshaw has been found strangled, with her body carefully posed to resemble a famous event from history. This makes Edgar think of one of the other acts at the Hippodrome – a troupe of showgirls called Living Tableaux, who appear almost naked on stage in recreations of historical or artistic scenes, their blushes covered by a few strategically placed feathers and some unobtrusive flesh-coloured pants. Artistic, young DS Bob Willis thinks – or sleazy, in the opinion of his colleague DS Emma Holmes. The first task the detectives face, then, is to see if they can find a connection between Lily and the troupe...

After the last book in the series took us off to London and America, I was pleased that this one returned to the theatre world of Brighton. Griffiths evokes both time and place convincingly, especially the itinerant life of the performers and the boarding houses they make their temporary homes. She's very good at showing how the paths of the show people cross and re-cross as they travel round the theatres of Britain, so that relationships are always being renewed or broken as bookings dictate. She shows the contrast between the seediness of backstage life and the glamour of performance, and how some love the travelling life while others see it as a short-term thing until they find something more settled.

In both her series, Griffiths tends to concentrate on the romantic lives of her lead characters more than is usual in police procedurals. This is something that a lot of readers particularly like about her books. Personally I don't mind a bit of romance, but I find it's often given too much prominence for my taste in Griffiths' books, although I prefer the way she's handling it in this series. But in this book, it all becomes a little too much, with every main character being in love or lust with someone, relationships starting and ending and lots of low-level romantic angst. It might actually be quite a realistic portrayal since most of the leads are youngish and single, but it gives the book a cosy-ish feel which somehow takes away from the story of the crime.

However, the plotting is strong and the story flows well so that it held my interest all the way through. It's more of a traditional length for a crime novel, thus avoiding the dreaded sagging middle – hurrah! And all three detectives are well-drawn and likeable – I enjoyed seeing Bob getting a bigger role in this one, and I was relieved that Emma didn't spend too much of her time battling sexism (a theme with which I'm bored rigid). I did feel that Griffiths had to stretch a bit to make Max relevant to the plotting – if the series continues, it's going to get progressively harder to work him in believably each time. Much though I like him, I'm kinda hoping that the development of Emma and Bob as stronger characters might allow Max to fade out a bit, leaving this as a more traditional police-based series, focused on Edgar and his team.

So overall, another strong entry in this enjoyable series – well researched, well plotted, well written. My criticism of the romantic angle is, I know, entirely subjective – Griffiths does it very well, and while it's a weakness for me, I'm sure it will be strength for people who enjoy that aspect more. And otherwise, I like these characters very much and love the post-war Brighton setting. I hope there's more to come...

NB This book was provided for review by the publisher, Quercus.