Death and the Conjuror: A Locked-Room Mystery

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When it comes to the murder, there is a reasonably restricted suspect pool, which should have made the plot more straightforward to follow, but not only does every character have their own secrets to hide, but the illusion-magic aspect of the mysteries made them absolutely impenetrable to me! The author/narrator notes towards the end of the story that all of the clues are there, and he is right, they are – I just had not a single hope of putting them together to come up with the correct solutions. I was very much poor Captain Hastings (from Agatha Christie’s Poirot stories) when it came to the final reveal scene!

Thus far, Tom Mead has only written two volumes in his Joseph Spector mystery series. Let us all hope that he will produce many, many more. If I weren't aware that this novel is coming out in July 2023, I would be absolutely convinced The Murder Wheel came from the "golden age" of detective fiction. The puzzles are wonderfully puzzling. Joseph Spector, the central character, is a former stage magician who now works informally with Scotland Yard's Inspector George Flint as a consultant on particularly outré cases, the kind of cases that seem as if they could involve magic—though they don't because Spector is as devoted to rationcination as was Holmes. When Lidia and her playboy boyfriend Marcus Bowman arrive home late one night, they learn Dr Rees’ throat has been slit. His body was discovered by his patient, Cookson, and the housekeeper. Cookson arrived late in a frantic state seeking the doctor’s advice.It’s going to take all the ingenuity of Joseph Spector, also fortunately attending Paolini’s performance, to sort out how these events are connected, who is responsible and to exonerate young Edmund.

Is Tom Mead a time traveler? Death and the Conjuror is such a wonderful Golden Age-style mystery that it is hard to believe he wrote it in 2022! If, indeed, he is a time traveler, I hope he takes this book with him; I am sure it will be widely enjoyed.We have a large cast of characters, including Patient A, Patient B, Patient C, the doctor's daughter and her rake of a boyfriend, an actress, a producer, several maids, the staff of a hotel, and more. Just a whole slew of suspicious people and almost witnesses but there are no answers. It will take magician and sleight of hand man such as Spector to figure this one out. With no clues, no witnesses, and not one trace of a murder weapon the stumped detective on the case calls on retired stage magician and now sleuth Joseph Spector to help unravel the mystery and bring the person responsible to justice. No one is going to buy a half-finished novel. You may not get it right first time, but it’s best to tell your story from beginning to end and worry about the rest later. That’s what editing is for. Author Pet Corner! Chloe! There are a number of characters, but once again Tom has focussed on a small cast, pivotal to the storyline, such as lawyer Edmund Ibbs, who I would say is our main player, and of course Inspector Flint, and Joseph Spector himself. They are joined by bankers and spouses, magicians, magicians' assistants, theatre workers, gambling men, criminals and whatnot. But the handful he has focussed on, he has given them so much time that you can really invest in their story. the characters' behavior only makes sense if you squint and also accept that they all have strange psychological issues.