Death and the Conjuror

April 1, 2022

DEBUT When Dr. Anselm Rees moved from Vienna to London, the semiretired psychiatrist took only three new clients. But, after a secretive visit from a guest one night in 1936, Rees's housekeeper and one of those patients, an actress, opened his locked office and found his murdered body. Inspector George Flint is baffled by the locked-room puzzle, so he seeks help from Joseph Spector, a music hall magician. Spector, a student of deception and contemporary mysteries, points out there were three impossible crimes that week; Rees's murder, the disappearance of a valuable painting, and a second death while the police were on the scene. As in any classic mystery, Spector calls together the suspects to reveal the killer. VERDICT This debut, a tribute to John Dickson Carr and other Golden Age masters of the locked-room mystery, will appeal to nostalgia buffs and fans of the classics.--Lesa Holstine

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Starred review from May 2, 2022
Set in London, Mead’s stellar debut and series launch, an homage to golden age crime fiction, in particular the works of John Dickson Carr, introduces magician Joseph Spector. In 1936, Spector’s Scotland Yard friend, Insp. George Flint, consults him in the baffling case of Austrian psychotherapist Anselm Rees. The doctor was found dead in his study with his throat slit so deeply that his head was almost decapitated. As the room’s door and windows were locked, Flint hopes Spector, a master of conjuring tricks and misdirection, can explain how anyone could have committed the crime and left the room sealed. The pair pursue the theory that the murder was a revenge killing after learning that one of Rees’s Viennese patients cut his own throat in a similar manner. Meanwhile, they must also probe two other cases: the apparently connected murder of a possible witness in an elevator that no one but the victim had access to, and the impossible theft of a rare artwork. Mead maintains suspense throughout, creating a creepy atmosphere en route to satisfying reveals. Puzzle mystery fans will eagerly await the sequel.

May 1, 2022
Mead's debut novel is a valentine to the locked-room puzzles of John Dickson Carr, to whom it is dedicated. London, 1936. Shortly after a mysterious and unexpected late-night visitor leaves the home of Dr. Anselm Rees in Dollis Hill, the uneasy members of his household contrive to enter his locked study and find the Viennese-born psychologist with his throat cut. Suspicion immediately falls on his daughter, psychologist Dr. Lidia Rees, and her all-but-fiance, playboy financier Marcus Bowman, but it isn't long before Inspector George Flint, still baffled by the killer's ability to escape a room locked from the inside, turns instead to the three patients the dead man had taken on since arriving in London. Floyd Stenhouse, Patient A, is a Philharmonic violinist tormented by dreams of snakes. Della Cookson, Patient B, is a kleptomaniac actress currently starring in Miss Death, which has just opened at the Pomegranate Theatre. Claude Weaver, Patient C, is a suspense novelist subject to blackouts. The waters are further muddied by the equally miraculous theft of a valuable painting from the home of theatrical impresario Benjamin Teasel and a murder at Dufresne Court, where Stenhouse lives. Luckily, Flint's friend Joseph Spector is a professional magician whose eyes are alert to every deception and whose experience with illusions of every kind allows him to pierce the veil at Dollis Hill with a panache that would make Carr proud. Mead faithfully replicates all the loving artifice and teasing engagement of golden-age puzzlers in this superior pastiche.

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