Death & the Conjuror

 Death & the Conjurer (2022) by Tom Mead

Joseph Spector was one of the greatest magicians. Since his semi-retirement he's turned his talents to amateur detective work because, as Inspector George Flint says, there has been a spate of "'impossible crimes'--typically high society affairs, where men in locked rooms were killed under impractical circumstances, or where, for example, a body was found strangled in a snowy field, with only a single set of footprints trailing backward from the corpse." So, when an impossible crime crops up Flint calls on the master illusionist to find the trick.

And, of course, an impossible crime is what we've got. Famous psychiatrist Anselm Rees is found with his throat cut in his locked study. The only means of entry--the inside door (locked with the key in the lock on the inside) and the French doors--also secured with the key inside. A mysterious man had visited the doctor shortly before his death, but Rees was heard speaking on the telephone after the man left. It seems impossible, but there must be an answer. 

Rees and Flint look the for culprit among the doctor's three patients and his household: Floyd Stenhous, a musician who suffers from nightmares; Della Cookson, an actress with kleptomaniac tendencies; and Claude Weaver, a misanthropic writer who fears he may be going insane. Then there is his daughter Lidia Rees, also a psychologist, who seems strangely calm at her father's death and who has the most unsuitable fiance, Marcus Bowman. Bowman is a Bright Young Thing who may be in desperate need of the cash Lidia will inherit. But the hurdle our detectives must get over is how did the killer get out of the room? Spector will need all the tricks in his repertoire to pull that rabbit out of his hat.

A very nicely done, very self-aware mystery in the style of the Golden Age. It plays with the tropes that were popular at the time--the puzzle plot, a locked room that gives a tip of the hat to the master John Dickson Carr, and the accomplished amateur to help the police find their way. I love how Flint tells us straight up that the Golden Age was a time when there as a huge uptick in these puzzle plot mysteries. The Detective Club was full of ingenious crime novelists coming up with intricate plots to fool their readers--while at the same time waving the clues right under their noses. All in the name of fair play. And the public loved being fooled. 

I enjoy a good locked room mystery and Mead does a good job--though I have to admit to feeling just a bit cheated when the solution was revealed. But as Spector tells us at the end of the novel--magicians do cheat (and writers are magicians with words, after all). But what he does really well is make me believe that this could have been written in the Golden Age. The historical period is well represented and the tone and setting is pitch perfect. Spector and Flint make a good team and I look forward to reading the next book in the series. ★★★★ and 1/2

First line: At the Pomegranate Theatre, tempers flared like oil lamps.

Last line: Spector's smile became a grin. "We cheat."

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Deaths = 6 (three throat cut; one natural; one strangled; one car crash)