Join us for tea and cake with the brilliant Elly Griffiths as she introduces her gripping new novel, The Great Deceiver – the latest instalment in The Brighton Mysteries series which is inspired partly by Elly’s grandfather’s life on the stage.

The Great Deceiver:

Magician Max Mephisto, now divorced and living in London, is on his way to visit daughter Ruby and her newborn baby when he is hailed by a voice from the past, fellow performer Ted English, aka the Great Deceiver. Ted’s assistant, Cherry, has been found dead in her Brighton boarding house and he’s convinced that he’ll be accused of her murder.

Max agrees to talk to his friend, Superintendent Edgar Stephens, who is investigating the case. What Max doesn’t know is that the girl’s family have hired private detective duo Emma Holmes (aka Mrs Stephens) and Sam Collins to do some digging of their own. The inhabitants of the boarding house, most of whom are performing in an Old Time Music Hall show on Brighton pier, are a motley crew. The house is also connected to a sinister radio personality called Pal. When a second magician’s assistant is killed, Edgar suspects a serial killer. He persuades Max to come out of semi-retirement and take part in a summer show. But who can pose as his assistant? Edgar shocks the team by
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Acclaimed crime author Elly Griffiths is best known for her award-winning Dr Ruth Galloway series and The Brighton Mystery series. In 2018 she wrote her first standalone novel The Stranger Diaries. The novel was a top 10 paperback bestseller, selected for the BBC Radio 2 Book Club, as a summer 2019 Richard and Judy book and won the Edgar Award for Best Novel in the USA. Her second standalone novel, The Postscript Murders, followed and her third standalone Bleeding Heart Yard published to glowing reviews in October 2022. She has won the CWA Dagger in the Library, has been shortlisted five times for the Theakston’s Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year, and longlisted for the CWA Gold Dagger for The Lantern Men. She is #18 on the list of most borrowed authors from UK libraries. Elly Griffiths lives near Brighton with her husband, an archaeologist.