D.H.’s review of The Fourth Wall > Likes and Comments

I'm grateful for your review yours and one other review are the only ones I could see, I came across this book in an article that featured famous authors books that had an impact on the way they write and Charlaine Harris listed this one- I'm glad I found your review

I've finally got this and am listening to the audio, the narrator is excellent

Shaelyn wrote: "I've finally got this and am listening to the audio, the narrator is excellent"

Dear Shaelyn

I am glad you are enjoying the book. Barbara Paul wrote well and knew the theatre. I've just looked her up. She died in 2022 aged 91, and wrote quite a few other mysteries. I might well see if they are still around. As a writer myself I'd hope I'd get the odd review, 42 years after a book of mine was written (hers was published in 1978). I wrote the review in 2020, so she was still alive then. I wonder if she saw it.

All the best
Derek
(writing my crime series Jack of All Trades as DH Smith)

You prompted me to re-read it, Shaelyn. And I enjoyed it again, second time around, always a good test of a book. I so enjoyed the theatre ambience, reminding me of my own days as a playwright, though nowhere near as successful as Abbies'. It's a very 'writerly' book too, about plays and playwriting. Maybe that's why it got some poor reviews too, thoroughly undeseserved to my mind. I had totally forgotten the ending, which is surprising considering the final cruelty. I am going to see if I can get hold of any other Barbara Paul books. Charlaine Harris was dead right; BP tells a good tale.

Derek