Iām a devourer of Golden Age Detective Fiction, and a writer of locked-room mysteries inspired by the classics. When it comes to old-school mystery writers, my favourites are John Dickson Carr, Ellery Queen, and of course Agatha Christie. What I love about that era is the brilliance of the puzzles, and the way those writers really engaged with the reader and (in some cases) addressed them directly, challenging them to solve the crime along with the detective. Additionally, Iām fascinated by stage illusions (though Iām terrible at performing them myself), and this has also had a major influence on my writing.
This book captures just about everything I love about the mystery genre.
Itās a locked-room mystery set in a snowbound cabin, where a group of city slickers find themselves confronted with a seemingly supernatural entity: the Wendigo. Rim of the Pit has a tangible sense of dread, which is something you donāt often find in Golden Age mysteries, but at the same time itās a masterclass in logic and misdirection.
It certainly taught me a lot about creating suspense but also about planting clues ā lessons Iāve put to use in my own books.
The cult classic mystery that John Dickson Carr hailed as āa marvel of ingenuity.ā
āI came here to make a dead man change his mind.ā
So begins a creepy and unusual mystery celebrated to this day as one of the greatest āimpossible crimeā novels of all time. When a familyās promise to protect the beloved pine grove of their dead father creates a financial strain, a seance is suggested to summon the ghost of the late logger and ask its permission. A mixed group of skeptics and believers convene at a snow-bound lodge to call the spirit with a groupā¦
The main character in Death From A Top Hat is the enigmatic magician, The Great Merlini, and he is certainly a beguiling and intriguing character!
The perfect amateur sleuth, with everything I love about this particular āstock character.ā Heās funny, heās smart, and he has ā quite literally ā plenty of tricks up his sleeve. This book, along with the rest of the Merlini series, offers many brilliant insights into the world of professional illusion.
But most important of all, this book offers an irresistible mystery that certainly kept me guessing!
A detective steeped in the art of magic solves the mystifying murder of two occultists.
Now retired from the tour circuit on which he made his name, master magician The Great Merlini spends his days running a magic shop in New Yorkās Times Square and his nights moonlighting as a consultant for the NYPD. The cops call him when faced with crimes so impossible that they can only be comprehended by a magicianās mind. In the most recent case, two occultists are discovered dead in locked rooms, one spread out on a pentagram, both appearing to have been murdered underā¦
During the 1970s and 80s, the Soviet Union penetrated the corporate economy and financial systems of the United States to engage in industrial espionage.
Cold Warrior is the story of Kasia Kerenski, a street mime who is ādiscoveredā to work as a Hollywood actress. Coerced into becoming a double agentā¦
If youāre interested in locked-room mysteries, cozy crime, or magic, then you need to read this book.
Gigi Pandian is one of the best in the business, and with Under Lock & Skeleton Key she launches a brand new and exciting series. Gigi is excellent at creating charming characters that the reader cannot help but care about ā this makes the mysteries themselves all the more compelling ā and this book captures everything thatās great about her writing.
"Wildly entertaining." āThe New York Times Book Review
Known for her wonderfully addictive characters, multiple award-winning author Gigi Pandian introduces her newest heroine in this heartfelt series debut. Under Lock & Skeleton Key layers stunning architecture with mouthwatering food in an ode to classic locked-room mysteries that will leave readers enchanted.
An impossible crime. A family legacy. The intrigue of hidden rooms and secret staircases.
After a disastrous accident derails Tempest Rajās career, and life, she heads back to her childhood home in California to comfort herself with her grandfatherās Indian home-cooked meals. Though she resists, every day brings herā¦
This is a bizarre and obscure one-hit wonder that definitely needs to be rediscovered.
The style is crisp and witty, with nicely barbed dialogue. The puzzle is utterly bizarre ā just the way I like them. And while the book itself doesnāt feature magical themes per se, itās actually written by a magician.
I admire Youāll Die Laughing for its sheer originality; having read many murder mysteries, I can honestly say Iāve never read one that repeats the trick at the heart of this decidedly idiosyncratic novel.
"I think I'll die ... ho ho ... laughing!" So exclaimed the practical-joking host of the elegant weekend party, after the siren that was attached to the flush lever on the commode went off. That set the mood for the rest of the weekend as the high-powered guests, including the mysterious analyst Dr. Guelph and a bunch of show-biz personalities, "enjoyed" the hospitality of the Grimsby brothers, Ben and the obnoxious Jesse. After choking down octopus and a dessert made of raw eggs, the party-goers were ready to murder Jesse, and each of them told him as much. Well, itā¦
This book is an elegiac meditation on the will to survive. Tor, a beluga whaler, and his wife, Astrid, a botanist specializing in Arctic flora, are stranded during the dark season of 1937-38 at his remote whaling station in the Svalbard archipelago when they misjudge ice conditions and fail toā¦
I simply had to include one of Daniel Stashowerās brilliant mysteries, as this all-too-brief series features one of the greatest and most famous illusionists of them all: Harry Houdini.
The story is narrated by Houdiniās brother, Dash, who serves as a kind of āWatsonā to Houdiniās boisterous āHolmes,ā and the two find themselves embroiled in numerous mysteries peppered with old-fashioned derring-do.
What I love about this book is the meticulous research that has clearly gone into it ā but Stashower wears his learning lightly; this is a brisk adventure where the pace never sags.
Harry Houdini and his brother, Dash, are called to solve the murder of a toy tycoon in this first locked room mystery starring the legendary real-life magicians
New York City, 1897: Young escapologist Harry Houdini is struggling to get the recognition he craves from the ruthless entertainment industry. But when toy tycoon Branford Wintour is found murdered in his Fifth Avenue mansion, detectives call upon Houdini to help solve this mysterious crime, ushering in a new era of Houdiniās career: amateur sleuth.
When Harry and his brother Dash reach the scene of the murder, they discover Wintour was found deadā¦
Illusionist turned sleuth Joseph Spector investigates a sinister conundrum at a 1930s theatre in this thrilling new mystery novel from Tom Mead, author of Death and the Conjuror, one of Publishers Weeklyās Mysteries of the Year 2022.
In London, 1938, young and idealistic lawyer Edmund Ibbs is trying to find any shred of evidence that his client Carla Dean wasnāt 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.
On a foggy morning in New York City, a man and a woman run into each other, literally. The man, a writer, invites the woman, an artist, for coffee. They married just two months later. And four years later, their marriage is crumbling. On a foggy morning in New Yorkā¦
Pete West, a political columnist, travels to Prague to find a missing diplomat, later found murdered. He attempts to discover more about a cryptic note received from the diplomat and is immediately entangled in the secret Bilderberg Clubās strategy to form a world federation.