For all those that don't know me. My writing journey began with a dream, which I turned into my first story. However that was not the first one I published (The Mystery of Merefield.) After several years of writing and re-writing, and several people reading the completed manuscript. this is the first review I have received. #amwritingcrime P.S. I hope to publish in the spring 2026
Review: The Devil’s Mask by Stephen Brown
Stephen Brown’s latest crime novel, The Devil’s Mask, begins with a killing that would not look out of place in a gothic nightmare. A silver theatre mask becomes the weapon of choice in a frenzied murder, and from that moment the book tightens its grip. Brown knows how to start a story: with menace, atmosphere, and a sense that the mask itself carries a curse.
Enter Jack Branham, an insurance assessor with a police past, who finds himself drawn into the investigation. Jack is no swaggering detective. He is lonely, dog-tired, and weighed down by routine. He tends dahlias, dog-sits for his sister, and trawls through case files with little enthusiasm. Yet beneath the humdrum lies a sharp observer of people, and it is this humanity that carries the novel.
Brown’s eye for setting is strong. Monkham, with its theatre company clinging to faded grandeur while housing developments gnaw at the edges of the village, is a world under siege. The theatre troupe itself is vividly sketched: Arthur Simmons, self-appointed leading man with a god complex; Laura Matthews, the manager with her own loyalties; Marjorie Sinclair, formidable and sharp-tongued; and Bert, the gruff stagehand who knows more than he lets on. Each feels authentic, the sort of characters readers will suspect in turn.
What distinguishes The Devil’s Mask from more mechanical mysteries is Brown’s willingness to step sideways. Jack’s noir-soaked dreams, his tentative ventures into online dating, and his clumsy attempts at self-defence training add layers beyond the case. These diversions risk slowing the narrative in lesser hands, but here they deepen the portrait of a man searching for purpose, connection, and danger in equal measure.
The prose is clean, unpretentious, and confident. Brown writes in the tradition of Horowitz and Billingham: straightforward storytelling, dark humour when required, and a refusal to flinch from violence. The mask itself lingers as a symbol — not just a stolen prop, but a reminder of performance, deception, and the masks people wear in life.
If the theatre play-within-the-novel is deliberately dreadful, the novel surrounding it is anything but. The Devil’s Mask offers a compelling blend of murder, character, and atmosphere. It confirms Stephen Brown as a crime writer with both craft and confidence, unafraid to let his flawed protagonist stumble through a world where menace and mundanity collide.
Verdict: A taut, atmospheric mystery that will please fans of classic and contemporary crime fiction alike.
P.S. I hope to publish in the spring 2026
Review: The Devil’s Mask by Stephen Brown
Stephen Brown’s latest crime novel, The Devil’s Mask, begins with a killing that would not look out of place in a gothic nightmare. A silver theatre mask becomes the weapon of choice in a frenzied murder, and from that moment the book tightens its grip. Brown knows how to start a story: with menace, atmosphere, and a sense that the mask itself carries a curse.
Enter Jack Branham, an insurance assessor with a police past, who finds himself drawn into the investigation. Jack is no swaggering detective. He is lonely, dog-tired, and weighed down by routine. He tends dahlias, dog-sits for his sister, and trawls through case files with little enthusiasm. Yet beneath the humdrum lies a sharp observer of people, and it is this humanity that carries the novel.
Brown’s eye for setting is strong. Monkham, with its theatre company clinging to faded grandeur while housing developments gnaw at the edges of the village, is a world under siege. The theatre troupe itself is vividly sketched: Arthur Simmons, self-appointed leading man with a god complex; Laura Matthews, the manager with her own loyalties; Marjorie Sinclair, formidable and sharp-tongued; and Bert, the gruff stagehand who knows more than he lets on. Each feels authentic, the sort of characters readers will suspect in turn.
What distinguishes The Devil’s Mask from more mechanical mysteries is Brown’s willingness to step sideways. Jack’s noir-soaked dreams, his tentative ventures into online dating, and his clumsy attempts at self-defence training add layers beyond the case. These diversions risk slowing the narrative in lesser hands, but here they deepen the portrait of a man searching for purpose, connection, and danger in equal measure.
The prose is clean, unpretentious, and confident. Brown writes in the tradition of Horowitz and Billingham: straightforward storytelling, dark humour when required, and a refusal to flinch from violence. The mask itself lingers as a symbol — not just a stolen prop, but a reminder of performance, deception, and the masks people wear in life.
If the theatre play-within-the-novel is deliberately dreadful, the novel surrounding it is anything but. The Devil’s Mask offers a compelling blend of murder, character, and atmosphere. It confirms Stephen Brown as a crime writer with both craft and confidence, unafraid to let his flawed protagonist stumble through a world where menace and mundanity collide.
Verdict: A taut, atmospheric mystery that will please fans of classic and contemporary crime fiction alike.