Elephants in the Distance

This neat, oddly oblique puzzle will please mystery fans and delight magic devotees. Paul Galliard, Ph.D. candidate in Civil War history and a part-time magician, earns a living acting in TV commercials. Thirty years ago, his headliner father Thomas died on a live TV magic show doing the ``bullet-catch'' stunt. Now, Paul's old mentor Josef Schneider has a fatal heart attack while performing at a children's party. When Paul suffers a mysterious seizure after inflating some balloons from Schneider's prop case, he has them tested and finds they've been doped. An odd fire in Paul's apartment destroys the evidence, another old friend of Paul's father dies in a freak accident at a TV rehearsal and Paul realizes someone's out to get the survivors of a WW II troupe of magician-spies. There's a third murder before Paul unlocks the puzzle during a TV special in which he re-creates the bullet catch. He also uncovers a 30-year-old mystery and this time the stunt really is death defying. This is great, light-handed fun from Edgar nominee Stashower ( The Adventure of the Ectoplasmic Man ). Literary Guild alternate. (Apr.)