The Fourth Wall

by Barbara Paul

Other than a critic, who'd kill a Broadway play? Playwright Abigail James has long been fascinated by revenge tragedies, those theatrical classics about getting even. But all of a sudden, she's living in The set of her latest Broadway hit has been vandalized, actors horribly attacked, a designer blinded with acid, the brilliant director terrified into hiding. Clearly, they have all committed some grievous wrong, terrible enough to prompt this orgy of destruction. But who did they wrong? The police are clueless, so James and her colleagues see only one They'll examine their collective sins and pinpoint the injured party. And then they'll exact some revenge of their own.

Genres: Mystery, Fiction, Crime, Mystery Thriller

328 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1979

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database.

Barbara Paul is an American writer of detective stories and science fiction. She was born in Maysville, Kentucky, in 1931 and was educated, inter alia, at Bowling Green State University and the University of Pittsburgh.

A number of her novels feature in-jokes: for example Full Frontal Murder borrows various names from the British TV series Blake's 7.

Reviews

[D.H. Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

Looking for something to read to get through the dreariness of Covid 19 lockdown, in May 2020, I found this book on my shelves. It must have been there 20 years or more. I bought it for 10p, so it says on the inside cover, a local library sell off. My copy is a Women Press 1988 edition, but the novel was first published in 1979 by Doubleday. Having left the book so long on my shelves unread, and been bought so cheaply, I thought, it at very least deserved a review.

I really enjoyed The Fourth Wall. A good thriller/whodunit. The tale is told in the first person by Abigail James, a successful New York playwright. There’s quite a bit of violence, although shocking, the author doesn’t go in for gruesome description. What’s more important is the effect it has on others, the cast and crew of Abby’s play Foxfire. We begin with a shock, the leading lady’s cat has been decapitated. There’s much more to come to terrorise everyone associated with the play: disfigurement, arson and murder. But the show must go on! All this hell brings in the audiences but has the cast living on their nerves. Who is doing this to them, will it ever end?

I enjoyed the theatre ambience. Barbara Paul certainly is knowledgeable. She gets the feel of all the jockeying egos. The understudy glad for a chance, even though at someone’s misfortune, the ups and downs of the performances, arguments between playwright, cast and director. I was a playwright for a number of years and know the anguish one can suffer. So I was with Abby. You are utterly dependent on actors, directors, stage crew, any of whom can mess up your creation. Amidst all this, the cops are investigating the crazy mayhem of wounding, burglary, desecration and murder. A very good read.

[Carol · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am giving this old stand alone book 5 stars. It took place in the world of theatre which I loved. Learning random stuff is always interesting and a couple of the characters were minor characters in Fare Play (a Marion Larch book) and I liked reading what happened to them. This book reminded me of Agatha Christie books but with fleshed out characters. The crimes committed in the book are gross though, I had to skip the first page involving a cat (I'm an animal lover). There are a lot of crimes in The Fourth Wall but it is also a story of friendship and survival.

[Susanm · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed the funny and acerbic writing style, the NYC in the late 1970's setting, and the voices of the characters, plus all the detail about working in theater. But it was shockingly violent at times and kind of a strange story. Bit of a weird one.

[Nicky · Rating 5 out of 5]

WOW! I absolutely LOVED this book. So much more than I expected. I picked it up because I wanted a mystery with a theatre setting and came across this on a list somewhere.

The writing was so genuinely heartfelt, surprisingly funny, the twists and turns were so good and so unexpected, and the mystery of who was behind everything was well done and thought out.

I also loved how the author didn't put the police on a pedestal, and showed a wide range of the type of cops you'd likely deal with in a drawn out case like this.

I think I'll be rereading this in the future, it's just that lovely and wonderful

[Mark · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ok, I admit I’m the world’s most avid theatre goers, but even if I weren’t, I cannot imagine falling in love with this intriguing, very dark, and always perplexing mystery. Read in two days, it was truly all I could think about. Paul is an elegant writer. She’s not scared to go dark when need be. Edge of your seat really. Highly recommended!

[Lola · Rating 1 out of 5]

I read half of this book and then gave up. It was mostly about playing and actors' roles which I found boring. The story is about members of the cast being vandalized, and/or injured by an unknown suspect.

[Sydney]

Reaaally enjoyed this book. Raw emotion, thriller, easy read. Loved the “jump scares” like the author would be writing a paragraph and at the end there was a shocking sentence like “then we cut out his tongue” and you’re just reading it like 😳😱😳😱

[Beth · Rating 4 out of 5]

interesting plot; well written

[Anne · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very mixed feelings about this book. Horrible ending. I’ve remembered it for years though so there’s that.

[Don · Rating 4 out of 5]

Someone has got it in for Abigail James's Broadway hit play, and a whole set of folk around the cast and production crew are paying a high price for their enmity. Acts of vandalism and violence begin to mount up, and then the body count starts to go up.

Worse still, there's no expert sleuth around to track down the mischief-maker. The plot tells the story of a group of people struggle to carry on with their passion - the theatre - playing out roles on the stage but also aware that someone maybe not very far away, is is using this to inflict huge damage on their lives. We get to learn a lot about what goes on during a play's production; the egos that need to be massaged as well as the practical problems solved in order to keep the show on the road. Paul uses all these day-to-day anxieties of the profession really well to ramp up the paranoia that is the story's bigger theme.

Another one of these books that has been on my shelves probably for decades, pulled down to be read quite by accident. Must see what else I've got hidden there....

[Noellah · Rating 4 out of 5]

NOPE!This is not a SPOILER.
I thought It was Jake Steiner, Sylvia's hubby but then no since he's never been backstage.
Whatever unveils next whoa whoa whoa....
who'd have thought.
Jake Steiner dies, Loren ,Dorothy & john hiding. Man I was so waiting for them to come back and throw those big parties damn it.
Abby, Leo and Ian make the win team man.And business goes on like nothing ever happened.

hahaha Hugh Odell is funny ''You missed your calling bitch,you should've been a librarian''
But what happened to Tony Fisher (man)...
Leo Gunn's suspecting some/his guess Nailed it I swear. How do you guess like that

I just love BARBARA PAUL.

[Judith Rich · Rating 2 out of 5]

Didn't really like this. It's one of those where, however clever it is, I just don't believe a person would actually behave like this - it reminded me of a fabulous TV series called "Messiah" which I watched some years ago, where everyone was murdered in ways based on the torments of Hell in Dante's Inferno. Clever plot, but REALLY? No-one is going to do that. And no-one is going to take so long to do that.

It also reminded me of a film called "Theatre of Blood" starring Vincent Price, about a series of murders based on Shakespearean deaths. Again, very entertaining, but come on.

And I have a big problem with the end.

[Kathleen · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is about a theater company that is being terrorized by some vengeful unknown. The members of the company decide that since the police can't seem to help them, they will have to deal with the investigation on their own. And when they find the culprit, they deal with their own revenge on their own as well.

Told with such humor and panache that while you can't condone what the characters do, you can't really hate them for it. Well-written with engaging characters and clever action.

[Jules Jones · Rating 5 out of 5]

[2006-11-25] Early mystery from Barbara Paul, set in a New York theatre in the present day. A modern take on the Jacobean revenge tragedy, it's harsh and a traumatic read, but one hell of a book. One of my all-time favourite mysteries, and I'm pleased to see that it's recently been brought back into print.