The Library Game: A Secret Staircase Novel

Pandian delights with her fourth whodunit featuring disgraced Las Vegas magician Tempest Raj (after A Midnight Puzzle). When her performing career ended in ruin, Tempest returned to her small California hometown to join the family business: a secret staircase construction firm. The firm’s latest client, Harold Gray, hired the company to convert his home into a library focused on classic detective fiction just before he died. Now, Harold’s heir and grandnephew, Cameron, has taken control of the project. He asks for his own living quarters above the library and goes ahead with his late uncle’s plan to host an interactive murder mystery play, written by Tempest and her friend Ivy, to christen the new space. After one of the actors is killed while rehearsing a stunt with a toy gun, the bad situation turns truly bizarre. Not only had the victim somehow switched places at the last second with another actor, who’s now missing, but then the body disappears altogether. Drawing on her expertise as an illusionist, Tempest sets out to solve the impossible crime, despite knowing she’s up against a roomful of suspects who know their way around a murder mystery. Tempest remains an immensely likable heroine, and Pandian’s shrewd puzzle plot arrives at a satisfying and surprising conclusion. This will enchant fans of Golden Age mysteries. (Mar.)