![]() ![]() “This is the proper place, isn’t it?” asked the Stranger. He showed me the advertisement that he’d circled in black. For the sitting, I mean.” From the bowl of his hat he pulled out a scrap of newspaper. Behind the lenses of those cheaters, his eyes were almost yellow. His hair was silver, his mustache gray, his spectacles thick and round. He was standing under the porch light, like a big moth in a rumpled overcoat, holding his hat and a bamboo cane. Scooter King, thirteen, I saw the Stranger in. The sitters were at their places, all four around the table. He came out of the hot summer darkness and tapped three times on the door. “The first-person perspective is punchy and engaging…Drawing from several true stories, Lawrence has crafted an elaborate, fun, fast-paced murder mystery with a rich sense of time and place.”Īt five minutes to midnight, a stranger arrived for the seance. Chapter headings, titled like newspaper extra editions, give a date-by-date account of happenings in the novel and in the world, such as the June 2, 1926, antics of flagpole sitters and Admiral Byrd’s adventures at the North Pole.” “Lawrence sets his story perfectly in the times, with particular emphasis on the razzle-dazzle of vaudevillian speech. “Mystery lovers will get a kick out of this rollicking whodunit featuring swashbuckling soothsayers, outlandish séances, magic tricks and more.” Rich in period detail, this novel is a fast-paced ride through a world of wonder, magic and mystery. Meanwhile, Houdini’s mission to unmask famous local spiritualist Viktor Valerian brings him ever closer to discovering Scooter’s mother and destroying the Kings’ livelihood. But when two more people end up dead and the Kings receive a threatening letter in the mail, Scooter must choose between cracking the case and protecting himself and his mother. Discouraged by the indifference of the local police and emboldened by an exciting new friendship with Houdini, Scooter is determined to figure out who is trying to kill his mentor. When Scooter discovers a dead body in Houdini’s tank, he is drawn into a dangerous mystery which only grows darker as the murderer’s real target is revealed: Houdini himself. Not only is Houdini a world-renowned magician and escape artist, he is also a dogged medium hunter who takes pleasure in exposing charlatans in every town he visits. The Kings’ racket is jeopardized when Harry Houdini comes to town to perform his famous Burmese Torture Tank escape. The year is 1926 and thirteen-year-old Scooter King is spending the summer rigging séances for his mother, a fraudulent medium who believes in her own psychic gifts despite their unpredictability. Buy the Book: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, IndieBound, Indigo
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |