A magician turned detective is caught up in the most baffling locked-room murder mystery...

'One of the all-time greatest impossible murder mysteries' Publishers Weekly starred review

'Dazzling' Saturday Review

'A cornerstone of detective fiction' New York Times


Master magician The Great Merlini has hung up his top hat and white gloves, and now spends his days running a magic shop in New York and his nights moonlighting as a consultant for the NYPD. When the crimes seem impossible, it is his magician's mind they need.

So when two occultists are discovered dead in locked rooms, one spread out on a pentagram, both appearing to have been murdered under similar circumstances, Merlini is immediately called in. The list of suspects includes an escape artist, a professional medium, and a ventriloquist - and it is only too clear that this is a world Merlini knows rather too well...