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Crime & mystery fiction

THE MURDER WHEEL

Tom Mead

In Tom Mead's follow-up to Death and the Conjuror former stage magician Joseph Spector is back to help Scotland Yard with yet another hopelessly baffling case. A locked-room mystery lovers' delight!

In London, 1938, young and idealistic lawyer Edmund Ibbs is trying to find any shred of evidence that his client Carla Dean wasn't the one who shot her husband dead at the top of a Ferris Wheel. But the deeper he digs, the more complex the case becomes, and Edmund soon finds himself drawn into a nightmarish web of conspiracy and murder. Before long he himself is implicated in not one but two seemingly impossible crimes. First, a corpse appears out of thin air during a performance by famed illusionist "Professor Paolini" in front of a packed auditorium at the Pomegranate Theatre. Then a second victim is shot dead in a locked dressing room along one of the theatre's winding backstage corridors. Edmund is in exactly the wrong place at the wrong time and attracts the suspicion of Scotland Yard inspector George Flint. Luckily, conjuror-turned-detective Joseph Spector is on the scene. Only Spector's uniquely logical perspective can pierce the veil of deceit in a world of illusion and misdirection, where seeing is not always believing. Tom Mead continues to pay homage to the locked room mysteries of the Golden Age in this second Joseph Spector novel. Tom Mead is a UK-based author specializing in crime fiction. His stories have appeared in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, Litro Online, Flash: The International Short-Short Story Magazine, Lighthouse, Mystery Scene and Mystery Weekly (among others). Several of his pieces have also been anthologized, most recently "Heatwave" in The Best Mystery Stories of the Year 2021 (Mysterious Press; ed. Lee Child).

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Book Published 2023-07-11 by Mysterious Press

Comments

A clever writer with a mastery of setting, plotting, and the world of the illusionist, Tom Mead takes the reader on a delightful ride. Ibbs is a deliberate manthe perfect narrator for a story of murder committed very deliberately. I was pulled deep into the puzzle and held there to the very end. Kudos, Mr. Mead. Mystery readers will love this dazzling, page-turning tale.

The Murder Wheel is a wildly entertaining mystery brimming over with knotty puzzles, sleight of hand, wit and intelligence. It confirms Tom Mead's status as a master of the locked-room mystery, and secures Joseph Spector as one of my favourite fictional detectives.

The Murder Wheel harks back to an earlier type of mystery [.] Making things even more fun here is the combination of two vintage templates: the locked-room puzzle and the theater mystery. Add a charismatic protagonist, and you have a recipe for pure nostalgic pleasure.

A delicious locked room feast of impossibilities set in the golden age of theatre and murder mysteries. I love the Mephistophelean Joseph Spector!

[A] complex interwoven narrative . The reader enjoys a twisted road to an unexpected denouement.

Mead has a rare talent for refreshing and energising the classic form.

The Murder Wheel was a delight from enigmatic start to clever finish. Tom Mead's expert, house-of-mirrors plot joyfully confounds the reader page after page. It is a real treat of perplexities and conundrums for mystery lovers everywhere.

The master of mystery strikes again! An elaborate, razor-sharp and perfectly plotted thrill ride.

Tom Mead has a real talent for writing genuine locked room mysteries and The Murder Wheel is a worthy successor to the splendid Death and the Conjuror.

Tom Mead has quickly become one of my must-read authors, writing some of the most ingenious and entertaining locked-room mysteries being published today.

Mead's brilliant second Joseph Spector novel [.] sees the retired magician saddled with three seemingly impossible murders to solve [.] Mead plays scrupulously fair with his readers [.] Lovers of John Dickson Carr's puzzle mysteries will hope Mead has many more Spector tales up his sleeve.

An affectionate tribute to the Golden Age locked-room mystery [.] Mead's skilled homage draws from early 20th century true-crime cases and classic genre motifs, all set against the charmed worlds of the fairground and theatre.

A triple-barrelled puzzle [.] Even readers who live to match wits with canny authors and detectives are likely to be outwitted by this one.

Magnificent! An absolute masterclass in the locked room mystery. Beautifully written with fabulous characters. I love this series. More please!

Mead has extensively researched crime, magicians and their tricks from the 1930s for this highly entertaining tale.

UK: Head of Zeus ; Chinese (simpl.): Shanghai Culture

Tom Mead borrows his 'impossible mysteries' from the Golden Age of mystery writing and adds a subtle droll twist. Clues and hints fall like confetti in winter, brightening the darkest scenes of murder and hidden-away lives of potential villains. I defy even the cleverest of readers to know who committed the murders until the cerebral Spector reveals all. There is a delicate, enticing, engaging, lightly-touched stream of humour throughout. The reader, whilst absorbing the grim details of murders, is encouraged to smile, perhaps a brief laugh. Mead's first mystery novel, Death and the Conjuror, was globally lauded by readers and critics alike, The Murder Wheel is an even better follow-up.

Set within the theater world of 1938 London, this ingenious new novel is packed full with lush period detail, a glittery cast of characters, and a genuinely compelling puzzle at its center. Mead knows his subject and gives the reader a full immersion into this compelling mystery.

A brilliantly contrived plot, scattered with false trails, makes for a literary sleight of hand that is a delight to read. Further brain teasers from Mead must surely be in the pipeline.

In his captivating second novel Tom Mead establishes himself as the current master of the locked-room mystery, and The Murder Wheel doesn't give us merely one example of this honored tradition to solve, but three of them.three interlocking "impossible" murders, each with plenty of twists and skillful misdirection. The characters are charming, the plot moves briskly along, and in the end, the brilliant 'Old Conjuror,' Joseph Spector, puts it all together and comes up with the goods. A winner!

The Murder Wheel might be inspired by classic Golden Age detective fiction, but it's also entirely original. It's clever ingenious in places it's fun and in Joseph Spector, the ex-illusionist, Tom Mead has created an amateur sleuth to rival Sherlock Holmes and Hercule Poirot. I raced through it. Highly recommended.

Pitch perfect magical locked-room extravaganza. The Murder Wheel astounds and amazes, and if you don't fall under Spector's spell you must be made of stone.

Ingenious and enjoyable, this is just the job for those needing a few hours' respite from real-world horrors.

What an absolute treasure! Tom Mead writes with the sophisticated and knowing voice of another era, with a skilled sleight of hand, and with deep knowledge of psychology, magic, and human nature. The Murder Wheel is an engaging, perplexing, and irresistible riff on locked room mysteriesyou've never seen a series of crimes as delightfully complex, or as brilliantly crafted. You will not be able to put this down, and what's more, you will never be able to solve all the puzzles within puzzles. But you will stand and applaud, as I did, at the marvelously fair solutions. I promise you'll be given all the clues, dear murder mystery readers, but, trust me: give up trying to identify whodunnit, and simply enjoy the journey to an elegant and satisfying conclusion, where the impossible becomespresto!possible.