Review: Death and the Conjuror

Tom Mead has conjured the Golden Age of Crime with this first novel featuring puzzle-solving magician, Joseph Spector. In "Death and the Conjuror", Tom Mead aims to pay homage to John Dickson Carr and Jonathan Creek, but he succeeds in doing a whole lot more than that, because this novel is just as clever and entertaining, earning its spot on the very same podium.

Tom convincingly plunges us into the heart of London society in the thirties with a cast of colourful and quirky characters, headed by the most spellbinding of them all, Joseph Spector. He takes us from the bright lights of the stage to haunted nightmares and from the darkest corners of the Black Pig to the trendiest clubs, all the while keeping the locked study foremost in our minds.

Tom Mead deftly shuffles his pack of playing cards in which plot, cast, setting, and atmosphere are the suits and entices the mystery hounds of the world to pit wits against him.

I was particularly pleased because I identified the murderer and guessed a couple of the tricks put into play. However, I didn't figure out all the ins and outs of the puzzle. This is a complicated mystery, and Tom Mead scatters the pieces far and wide, but the dark tableau is coherent once Spector puts them together for us.

If, like me, you're hooked on locked-room puzzles, you need to read Tom Mead!

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