Shell Game

Carol O'Connell

3/12/2005

Max Candle had a death defying trick using cross bows. He only used it once and never told its secret. A boy had died when he used it the first time and he refused to bring it out again. But the great Max Candle has been dead for many years. Now one of his comrades from World War II Paris is resurrecting the Lost Illusion. The old man had taken the plans that Max had left in his will and rebuilt the stage the way it had been. Then, as the remaining magicians were planning a reunion of the Paris theater in New York, Oliver Tree staged the trick before a live television audience. Something went wrong. Tree died from arrows shot from the cross bows on live television.

The other aging magicians continue with the reunion and celebration despite the death. The case is closed by the NYPD as an accident. Mallory disagrees. She is certain the accident was fixed and that Tree's death was actually murder. Liertenant Coffey, her superior, and Riker, her partner, disagree with her. When the Thanksgiving parade is disrupted by gunshots, Mallory is put on suspension pending investigation.So she decides to get to know the aged but still active magicians who were with Candle and Tree back in the early 1940's.

Malakhai has become a loner. His dead wife Louisa is with him always, still smoking and still drinking sherry. Nick Prado still has his own yellowed teeth and thinning hair. His ego is so large he knows he can attract any woman who catches his eye. He is the owner of a large public relations firm in Chicago and doesn't understand how Mallory (and others) can resist him. Emile St. John went on on to work with Interpol. Franny Futura kept practicing magic, but did not modernize his act as the years went on. More sophisticated audiences don't appreciate his act when compared to magicians like David Copperfield.

Mallory is certain one of these men killed Tree. Another one is still a target. She hopes to prevent another murder of one of them. She has to learn about the past when these men were young and together the first time as well as the present feelings and motives.

Now why is a sociopath appealing as the protagonist of this series of mysteries? Yet Kathleen Mallory is. She was diagnosed as a sociopath around age 11 after she had been rescued from the streets of New York City. She doesn't seem to feel or recognize emotions as "normal" people do. Her father's friends, now her friends, know that if she hadn't been guided by her father into the police force whe would have been either dead or in jail for her crimes. Yet enough humanity glimpses through that Mallory is appealing. Her friend, civilian partner, Charles Butler, is appealing in a sad comic way. The reader keeps hoping for his relationship with Mallory.

This book is average. The presentation of Malakhai's wife is fascinating. He keeps her alive through unseen magic. Mallory keeps trying to penetrate his illusion of Louisa and to catch him out.The reader is right there with her. At the conclusion I was still a bit confused as the ending was revealed.

You can find more about this book at .

Mallory's Oracle
The Man Who Cast Two Shadows
Killing Critics
Stone Angel
Shell Game
Crime School
Dead Famous
Winter House
Find Me