When a psychiatrist is killed in his locked office late one evening, inspector Joseph Spector is called in to investigate. Spector is a magician and super sleuth akin to Holmes or Poirot; he sees the scene like no one else. Quickly we are down to a few suspects: his three famous patients, his daughter and her boyfriend. We spend quite a bit of time running in verbal circles as Spector hops from obvious, mundane explanations to complex, fantastical ones. I was fully immersed in the journey for the first half and then it felt a bit to me like we kept treading the same ground. Then when we finally got the explanation, it was over too quickly.
I wanted a little more detail on the actual culprit, we got the basics but some more flesh on those bones would have been appreciated. I had a solution concocted in my own head that I felt was better, which is not my job as the reader I know. I did enjoy this one but not as much as I hoped for based on the premise. I did like that during the explanation section, the author gave us references to the actual clues back on their original pages, more authors should do this! ⭐️⭐️⭐️💫
Thanks to Netgalley for advanced access to this novel. All opinions above are my own.
Who is your favorite magician?
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