Magicians and Mystery, in NOW YOU SEE THEM from Elly Griffiths

When Elly Griffiths opened her "Magic Men Mystery Series," the threads and tension drew on the experience of a team of illusionists, some professional, helping Britain protect itself from World War II bombings. How the men perceived what they'd done in the war and the echoes remaining in their postwar lives deepened the suspense.

With her fifth in the series, NOW YOU SEE THEM Griffiths has already arrived in the 1960s in her seacoast once-was-resort town of Brighton, and those wartime connections have little meaning. The book opens, in fact, with a funeral for The Great Diablo, and Edgar Stephens, now the Detective Superintendent for the city's police force, sees the adventures of his youth being buried too.

But at least Edgar still has crime investigation to do! For his wife Emma, who loved her work on the police force and who's now parenting three small children, even attending the funeral and seeing Max Mephisto there is painful, as she resents the loss of her main identity:

"So, Mrs. Stephens," said Max, "how's married life?"

"We've been married for ten years now," said Emma, rather tartly. She wasn't sure that she liked Max's new habit of calling her Mrs. Stephens. As a child she'd hated her maiden name, Holmes (the source of much teasing when she entered the police force), but now she rather missed it.

Emma also has reason to feel envious of the new young WPC (woman police constable) on the force, Maggie -- who in turn is sick of the way her colleagues hold up Emma as an unattainably heroic beauty.

These frictions push Emma into her own investigations as schoolgirls in the region begin to disappear, and eventually they tip the balance on how much she'll risk to pursue the criminal and reach the girls in time to prevent more than one murder.

Count on revelations about "mods and rockers," Brighton's smuggling history, and the art of magic -- along with as strong traditional mystery framework that lets Griffiths move into the terrain she's already established so well in her other series featuring archaeological specialist Ruth Galloway: the hard choices women face daily in balancing what they want from life. (There are hints that Griffiths will also tag men's choices in her next book, as Max Mephisto and his daughter Ruby work out their own fates in more detail.)

Griffiths is a polished, tight writer, and like her other books, NOW YOU SEE THEM provides a good share of astonishing revelations. Enjoy it as a holiday treat to yourself, and shelve with women sleuths, England, postwar, and sleight of hand.

PS:  Looking for more mystery reviews, from cozy to very dark? Browse the Kingdom Books mysteries review blog here.

Brief Mention: Las Vegas Noir from David Kranes, ABRACADABRA

There's a new-ish trend among university presses that's fascinating to observe: an urge to publish fiction, including thrillers and mysteries, set in the press's home state. When the University of Minnesota Press began to publish the Scandinavian/Minnesotan fiction of Vidar Sundstøl, I became an instant fan. And now the University of Nevada Press presents David Kranes with his outrageous and delightful detective tale, ABRACADABRA.

Kranes is an established author of seven other novels and many short stories, and lives in Salt Lake City, Utah, where he is a professor emeritus at University of Utah. He clearly knows Las Vegas well -- but more importantly, he's willing to risk his dignity by creating a detective with a head injury that takes him well beyond "the facts of the case" -- and crime-solving assistants like the Bloody Marys (a network of cocktail waitresses) and his own team of celebrity impersonators (Shaquille O'Neal, anyone?). As a detective, Elko Wells is far outside the usual (and he used to be a pro football player, another wild aspect).

Then again, the case Elko tackles in ABRACADABRA is also outside the box -- literally. Lena Goodson wants him to find her husband Mark, who, trapped in a very uncomfortable marriage, has just escaped her, by leaving backstage during a magician's act that should have resulted in his simple reappearance in the traditional black stage box.

Plenty of fun and entertainment here, along with magic tricks and classic cons, as well as a sense of the mysteries of love and life and of course impersonation, whether intentional or not, and its, shall we say, spiritual aspects.

Grab this one for a very unusual blend of offbeat detection, caper, crime, and discovery.

PS:  Looking for more mystery reviews, from cozy to very dark? Browse the Kingdom Books mysteries review blog here.

British Murder Mystery, Traditional Yet Chilling, from Elly Griffiths, SMOKE AND MIRRORS

It's not easy for American readers to keep up with the top-notch British crime fiction, when the American authors are the ones getting the big full-page ads and the point-of-purchase bookshop displays. Thanks to a partnership between UK publisher Quercus and pub giant Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (HMH), though, two strong series from Elly Griffiths are now available here. And her newest title, SMOKE AND MIRRORS, arrives in the costume of a traditional British murder mystery, with perservering CID officers and a snow-covered seaside resort town.

But with deft story twists and an appeal to the dark side of classic fairy tales, Griffiths quickly takes her detectives and the pantomime cast for "Alladin" in 1951 Brighton into terrain that's deceptive, wicked, and downright eerie. All of which could be expected if you're already reading this "Magic Men Mystery" series featuring professional magician and brilliant illusionist Max Mephisto.

Max has a deep connection with Detective Inspector Edgar Stephens, who is leading the search for a pair of vanished children: A decade earlier a British defense effort against Hitler's forces involved Max and Edgar and a handful of others -- the so-called Magic Men, established by the military -- in a secret operation to confuse any invasion of England's coast by faking the presence of strong defenses there. The trust forged in the operation allows Max to work sometimes with Edgar, a big plus for the CID because Max grasps how the illusion of a successful crime can be built. And busted.

As the investigators begin to realize that the criminal they're pursuing and the children missing are somehow connected with a staging of a twisted sort of "Hansel and Gretel" by a group of children, Sergeant Emma Holmes begins to step out of her chilly, self-protective role in the local force, following her hunch to talk with a teacher who'd encouraged the children's drama efforts, especially by young Annie, already writing scripts:

Miss Young did not protest that Annie preferred sciences. Instead, to Emma's surprise, she drew out a folder from a pile on her desk.

'She wrote plays and stories too. I was just looking at these before you came. Morbid really. But reading them brought Annie back for a moment.'

Emma looked a the first sheet of lined paper. ... The writing was perfect primary-school script: 'The Wicked Stepdaughter.'

Emma started reading: 'It's the stepmother who's meant to be wicked but mine's just stupid, a fool who doesn't know what's coming to her. No, I'm the wicked one.'

Is Annie, one of the missing children, actually manipulating her own disappearance? If not, has she somehow threatened an adult who is punishing her and the community? And what does all this have to do with another child's stage-related death from before both world wars, in 1912?

It takes a lot of courage by several people, some in the police force, some performers, some children, to resolve the case of the missing children. And there are more at risk.

Griffiths ties together the damages of wartime Britain, the failings of damaged minds, and the dangers of being an astute child, into a wintry and fast-moving novel of intrigue and suspense. Max Mephisto's sleight of hand and mind will tilt Edgar's insight ... but most important will be the way the investigators follow up even the smallest detail, as the snow buries clues and pushes the pace in Brighton and on Max's stage.

SMOKE AND MIRRORS is one of the best new crime novels for this autumn. No need to read The Zig Zag Girl (its predecessor) before this one, but you may want to get both at once, for a highly satisfying read.

PS: Looking for more mystery reviews, from cozy to very dark? Browse the Kingdom Books mysteries review blog here.

Magic and Murder, in THE ZIG ZAG GIRL, Elly Griffiths

I've become a devoted reader of the Ruth Galloway series from British author Elly Griffiths. Just released in the US this month is the start of her newest Magic Men series, THE ZIG ZAG GIRL -- and while I missed the abrasive and oddly vulnerable Galloway at first, the premise of this new series is fiercely exciting, and I enjoyed the book very much.

Consider the British seaside town of Brighton in 1950, a mere five years or so after the end of World War II -- bombed-out buildings, struggling economy, and a bare-bones police force, in which Detective Inspector Edgar Stephens is trying to ignore his wartime losses and move forward. But when the body of a young woman is sent in three pieces, to his specific attention -- under the rank he had during the war -- he's got to take this one personally.

Edgar's war wasn't something he took pride in afterward. Recruited (after the Norway disaster) into a small corps of specialists in magic, sleight of hand, and psychology, swiftly labeled the Magic Men, he'd helped create false armaments along the English coast to trick the German pilots overhead. But things happened that cost lives, and he's ashamed and in an odd sort of mourning, as well.

Now it's all got to be exhumed, so to speak, along with his connection with the clever stage magician Max Mephisto. Yet Edgar and his friends appear to be reliably one or two steps behind the murderous person stalking them. What's it about? Who's to blame? How can he protect his friends (and incidentally not lose his job)? It's clear almost immediately that the mutilated body is meant to suggest a faulty magic trick called "the zig zag girl," and when the victim is identified, the links to the wartime crew are inescapable.

Soon Edgar's having to show a murdered Magic Men friend, Tony, to the man's aging parents:

"Anthony had a very important job in the war," said Mrs Mulholland. "He was with the Secret Service."

"I know," said Edgar, thinking, as he had thought at the time, that the Magic Men was the least secret secret mission that he had ever encountered. Everyone in Inverness knew all about them. Tony kept himself in free drinks -- and worse -- by telling the locals that he was part of a crack commando team.

The nimble way that Griffiths paints the war, the resulting friends-with-friction, and the challenges of chasing a killer without knowing the motive -- well, it adds up to a rattling good story and plenty of genial jests among the crimes.

I didn't bond quite as tightly here as I did with the earlier Griffiths series; there's so much going on, and there are so many red herrings and twists of plot, that I think the characters aren't shown as deeply in THE ZIG ZAG GIRL. But I trust Griffiths as an author, and I'll ride along with the series, hoping that this enjoyable but fairly light introductory title will lead me into emotionally more complex and compelling waters.

In fact, since Griffiths admits her own family connection to the characters, I'm positive this is going to be a very good direction for her, and I am eager for the next book. This is one of those moments when the book in hand isn't quite as powerful as the ones that have already flown ... but there's good reason to trust that it's an opening act for an upcoming winner.
**
PS -- The author's website is not up to date, but still gives a good look at the earlier series: http://ellygriffiths.co.uk