Death and the Conjuror: A Locked-Room Mystery

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Who are the suspects? Dr. Lidia Rees, daughter of Dr. Anselm Rees, seemed to be matter of fact about her father's demise. Her playboy boyfriend had many secrets. What of Patients A, B, and C? Why did the Rees family emigrate to London from Vienna? So many unanswered questions. It's 1930s London and there is a murder. Psychiatrist Anselm Rees has been murdered and the murderer has disappeared under impossible circumstances. What we have here is a closed room mystery but actually there is more than one closed room mystery before the story is over. It's the job of Scotland Yard Inspector George Flint to find the murderer and when confronted with the impossibility of the crime he calls on retired stage magician-turned-part-time sleuth Joseph Spector. In London, 1938, young and idealistic lawyer Edmund Ibbs is trying to find any shred of evidence that his client Carla Dean wasn’t the one who shot her husband dead at the top of a Ferris Wheel. But the deeper he digs, the more complex the case becomes, and Edmund soon finds himself drawn into a nightmarish web of conspiracy and murder. Before long he himself is implicated in not one but two seemingly impossible crimes. I loved all the characters. Touching on the different types of psychomachia was clever and made the characters more tangible. Della really was a conundrum and I would have actually liked to have known more about her for my own curiosity. The only character I didn't much care for was the daughter Lidia. I think she was deliberately made unlikeable which shows how much skill the author has.

I recently finished the second Spector book, a sequel to Death and the Conjuror called The Murder Wheel. What a muddled mish-mash this book is. I’m very surprised a publisher actually considered adding it to their list. From the outset the premise seems very odd. While one has seen detectives of every stamp, it is stretching credulity rather far to believe that a detective would consult an ex-magician on his cases. The rest of the story seems peppered with nonsense, all of which makes for a very unsatisfying read. While there is not much that can be said in its favour, there is much to criticise. Many thanks to NetGalley and Mysterious Press for this Advanced Reader Copy and the opportunity to review The Murder Wheel. All opinions and comments are my own. You would definitely need a sharper mind than mine if you hope to solve this mystery before the main characters do, but that didn’t stop me avidly devouring the book and wanting more of Joseph Spector and his impossible investigations. I love a story like this that lets you discover the mystery along with the detective, and in this case, his colleague who is a magician. At one point, the writer even breaks the fourth wall and stops to ask the reader if they've figured the mystery out! I loved that! And of course, I hadn't figured anything out!I’m growing quite fond of the regular characters in these stories. Joseph Spector is a bit of an enigma. A retired stage magician, he now appears to spend most of his time in a pub which he treats more or less like his office. He appears to be an einzelgänger but does have a keen interest in people and there is very little he doesn’t notice and store away for future reference. Of course, making the main character and investigator of this series a retired magician is a stroke of genius. Who could be better equipped to see beyond the sleight of hand and recognise the ways in which the seemingly impossible can be pulled off? It seemed natural to write about the 1930s because that was the height of the golden age of detective fiction.

In some ways it’s more challenging because you have fewer words to play with, so it’s not as easy to plant clues and guide the reader up the garden path. But the process itself is actually pretty similar—in my case, I might begin a short story with a single puzzle, image, idea or character, whereas I will begin a novel with a few disparate elements that I gradually weave together. What can we find you doing when you aren’t writing and reading mysteries? This is such a stylish and well written historical mystery set in the interwar period in England. Stage magician Joseph Spector joins forces with Scotland Yard inspector Flint to solve several "impossible" crimes. Readers who enjoy figuring out how before the sleuths will find a fiendishly clever puzzle. I gave up trying to beat the mystery about halfway in (impossible crimes upon impossible crimes) and just enjoyed the ride. The characters are well depicted so that they instantly become people the reader is invested in, enhancing the total enjoyment in reading The Murder Wheel. I loved the way dialogue helped uncover who they are as people, and not having read the first Joseph Spector book, Death and the Conjurer, didn’t detract at all, but has made me determined to catch up with it because I enjoyed The Murder Wheel so much. I also fully appreciated the scope for reencountering some of the characters in future stories even though this narrative is brilliantly and satisfactorily concluded.

Reviews

London. Young lawyer Edmund Ibbs has a new client: a woman accused of shooting her husband in the already infamous 'Ferris Wheel Murder' case.