Abracadaver

I think I'll put the Sergeant Cribb mysteries into the "commute book" category.  They're light, entertaining, but not too taxing at 7 am or so engrossing that they can't be put down when I pull into the station after 20 minutes.  Abracadaver fits the mold - an entertaining trip backstage at Victorian music halls where performers' careers are being murdered by sabotage.  Sergeant Cribb decides to investigate so he and Constable Thackery are watching from a box when the strongman's bulldog attacks him.  They help him to his rented room, only to disappear the following day.  They find him, along with the other disgraced performers, preparing for their return to the stage in an 'after hours' show for the elite; a show which ends in death.  Cribb eventually solves the crime, and I found both the identity and motive of the murderer unlikely.  I still enjoyed Abracadaver for the same reasons I enjoyed the previous installments in the series.  Peter Lovesy amusingly depicts a segment of the Victorian entertainment world.