Cabaret Macabre: A Locked-Room Mystery (Joseph Spector Series)
1938: The wife of eminent judge Sir Giles Drury contacts Joseph Spector, retired conjuror and amateur sleuth; someone is threatening her husband. She suspects Victor Silvius, currently incarcerated in a hospital for the insane. Silvius had attacked Sir Giles with a knife after his beloved fiancée died at Drury’s home ten years earlier, her death attributed to suicide by strychnine. Meanwhile Caroline Silvius, Victor’s sister, contacts Inspector Flint, certain that her brother’s life is in danger at the asylum.
After foiling a botched attempt on the judge’s life in London, Spector arrives at Marchbanks, Drury’s country home, and the entire family—the judge, his wife, two legitimate sons, one illegitimate son, and a stepson—descend to celebrate the holidays. Murder quickly follows when Drury’s bastard son is discovered in a small boat in the midst of a frozen pond, a large kitchen knife protruding from his torso. There are no footprints, no cracks in the ice. Absolutely nothing indicates how the body and boat were transported to the middle of the lake. Another mysterious death follows rapidly, a classic murder in a locked room.
Cabaret Macabre, Tom Mead’s third novel featuring Joseph Spector, is a devilishly intriguing read and a pleasing homage to Golden Age mysteries. No one and nothing are quite what they first seem, as Spector and Flint pursue their investigations at Marchbanks. Mead skillfully captures the era and the tone of the late 1930s, while the murderer proves a cunning adversary for Spector’s keen observations and Flint’s investigations. All the clues are given, but I challenge the reader to solve the puzzle. I certainly did not. My appetite is whetted for more of Spector’s cases after this very enjoyable book. Recommended.
