The Indian Rope Trick and Other Violent Entertainments

Mead (Cabaret Macabre) delivers an outstanding collection of 11 short stories—three previously unpublished—set in 1930s England and featuring retired conjurer–turned–investigator Joseph Spector. Mead’s “impossible murder” setups include, in the title tale, a strangulation in the aftermath of a legendary magic trick; a character’s death from spontaneous combustion in a descending cable car (“Incident at Widow’s Perch”); and a stabbing in a sealed-off room that appears to give credence to a retired military man’s assertions that he’s being stalked by a supernatural creature (“Invisible Death”). In each tale, Mead offers a cornucopia of remixed genre tropes and original tricks, including first-to-third person perspective shifts that pull the wool over readers’ eyes and eyebrow-raising details about murder scenes with no visible evidence of foul play. Through it all, Joseph Spector—who leads each of Mead’s three novels—remains a top-shelf amateur sleuth, able to ferret out clues with all the skill of Sherlock Holmes but without straining credibility or coming across like a cheap copy. These ingeniously constructed puzzles are all the more impressive for their brevity. Golden age mystery fans will be thrilled. Agent: Lorella Belli, Lorella Belli Literary. (Nov.)