My favourite thing about this book was the tone and mood (as in the setting, location, time period – the whole mise en scène). It's set in a faded, dowdy English seaside town in 1950: plenty of past-their-best music halls, dusty haberdasher shops, and stifling, clinically neat little suburban homes. I also enjoyed all the stuff about magicians and tricks. Unfortunately, the rest of the elements weren't so compelling. The characters seemed flimsy and dull, and this made the whole middle section really drag, as not much was happening except following them through a fairly by-the-numbers investigation. Still, it was an enjoyable read, and I'd happily read more books with this setting.

(I received a free copy of this book from Net Galley in exchange for an honest review.)

Brighton, 1950. The body of a girl is found cut into three pieces. Detective Inspector Edgar Stephens is convinced the killer is mimicking a famous magic trick—the Zig Zag Girl. The inventor of the trick, Max Mephisto, is an old war friend of Edgar's. They served together in a shadowy unit called the Magic Men, a special ops troop that used stage tricks to confound the enemy. Max is on the traveling show circuit, touring seaside towns with ventriloquists, sword-swallowers and dancing girls. He's reluctant to leave this world to help Edgar investigate, but advises him to identify the victim quickly — it takes a special sidekick to do the Zig Zag Girl. Those words come back to haunt Max when the dead girl turns out to be Ethel, one of his best assistants to date. He's soon at Edgar's side, hunting for Ethel's killer. Another death, another magic trick: Edgar and Max are sure the answer to the murders lies in their army days. And when Edgar receives a letter warning of another “trick” on the way — the Wolf Trap — he knows they're all in the killer's sights.

As a lot of reviewers before me have said, I am a fan of the Ruth Galloway novels and was looking forward to something a little different from Elly Griffiths.

And different was what I got. The novel started out with a bang and really hooked me in. I really enjoyed the time period in which this is set. Lots of interesting things going on at the start to bring the investigations into the savage murder of a woman. There are links between the crime and a group of men who served in WW2 called "The Magic Men". This link, while a little beyond the realms of realism, is fun and I thought it was quite imaginative.

However, as the novel worked its way towards the climax, the story just failed to build. No tension, no drama - just step-by-step investigation with no real need for haste. It just kinda meandered along and never really got to the peaks that I assumed would be the case like her Ruth Galloway books.

Overall, a clever idea and interesting premise - that just failed to hit the mark all the way through.


Paul
ARH