New Books In Literature

Hall of Mirrors (Pegasus Crime 2025) was selected as a New York Times Crime Novel of the Year. It opens with a fire – it’s May 1954 and Lionel Kane is watching his apartment go up in flames with his lover and writing partner Roger Raymond trapped inside. The police are sure that it’s a suicide. A couple of months earlier, Judy and Philippa attend a lecture by Ray Kane, one of their favorite mystery authors, and help him when he starts to look unwell. He’s a little off, newly fired from his State Department job because of Senator Joseph McCarthy’s purge of communists and homosexuals. A few months earlier, with hopes that he’d write about it, Judy and Philippa sent Ray Kane an anonymous packet of details about Adrian Bogdan, the spy and serial killer they’d been hunting for years, but they don’t know that Adrian was responsible for Ray Kane’s firing. After the lecture, they learn that “Ray Kane” is the pen name for Roger and Lionel, and Roger is the author’s public face because Lionel is Black. Lionel has two s