Publishers Weekly
02/03/2020
In the teasing prologue of bestseller Margolin’s convoluted third novel featuring attorney Robin Lockwood (after 2019’s The Perfect Alibi), Lockwood attends the debut of her magician client Robert Chesterfield’s “greatest illusion,” the Chamber of Death, which involves a locked coffin, at a Portland, Ore., theater. Three years earlier, Lockwood attended a dress rehearsal of the act, which “ended in a truly bizarre manner,” at Chesterfield’s seaside manor. This time, things also don’t go as planned, as screams emerging from the coffin are followed by the discovery of a male corpse, leaving Robin to wonder how murder was committed before 3,000 witnesses. Flash back to 2017, when Chesterfield seeks to hire her to patent the Chamber of Death, which she eventually agrees to do, despite having no experience with intellectual property. Another flashback, to 1997, shows that Lockwood was once suspected of a fatal poisoning. By the time the action returns to the present, the impact of the opening has been greatly diluted. Readers interested in whodunits set in the world of magic would be better served by Clayton Rawson’s classic Merlini novels. 100,000-copy announced first printing. Agent: Jennifer Weltz, Jean V. Naggar Literary. (Mar.)
From the Publisher
"A smooth, tight narrative with a snappy, old-time whodunit finish. Margolin pulls off his own sleight of hand when the murderer is revealed." —Booklist
MAY 2020 - AudioFile
Who is more qualified to hide a murder than a stage magician, a person whose entire career involves creating illusions? Therese Plummer narrates this engaging audiobook about "Lord" Robert Chesterfield, a magician with a habit of making lives disappear. Plummer delivers the story in a casual style that lures the listener in as Chesterfield engages two generations of lawyers to defend him. The latest is Robin Lockwood, a young defense attorney whose partner saved Chesterfield years earlier, when he was accused of two poisonings. Now, Chesterfield himself has disappeared during a performance as evil men demand repayment of huge loans. Can Lockwood save Chesterfield despite her suspicions that he previously got away with murder? Does she want to? M.S. © AudioFile 2020, Portland, Maine
Kirkus Reviews
2020-01-13
A magician's greatest illusion becomes even more dramatic when he's killed onstage in front of 3,000 witnesses.
Lord Robert Chesterfield (don't look too closely at that presumably self-conferred title) has finally perfected his ultimate magic trick: the Chamber of Death, which involves his escape from a bolted sarcophagus filled with scorpions, snakes, and him. Since Chesterfield's only public rehearsal for the illusion ended with his vanishing from both the sarcophagus and the face of the Earth for three years, expectations are running high, and the tickets for his performance at the Babylon Casino all seem to have been reserved for everyone the performer has ever crossed. His estranged second wife, Claire Madison, is there, along with her lover, rival magician David Turner, whose professional life took a nose dive when Chesterfield told the world the secret behind Turner's own trademark illusion. Joe Samuels, one of Chesterfield's many creditors, is on hand, and although Augustine Montenegro, a harder-edged creditor, couldn't make it, he's sent two of his enforcers. Iris Hitchens, who's never stopped believing that Chesterfield killed her mother, Lily Dowd, the grocery heiress who was his first wife, is watching in rapt attention. So are detectives Tamara Robinson and Lou Fletcher, who've come to arrest the magician for theft. There's hardly room in the crowd for young attorney Robin Lockwood (The Perfect Alibi, 2019, etc.), whose firm defended Chesterfield years ago against the charge of poisoning Sophie Randall, the secretary to Westmont Country Club manager Samuel Moser, who'd accused Chesterfield of cheating at cards and coming on to Sophie and others—and yes, Moser's in the audience too. It's clear from the opening pages that the Chamber of Death will be Chesterfield's last performance; the pages that follow are devoted to filling in the layers upon layers of dubious backstory and multiplying the suspects even further before the guilty party is plucked from thin air.
Lots of tricks up Margolin's sleeve. Just don't expect the denouement to bring down the house.
