Showing posts with label Joseph Spector. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Joseph Spector. Show all posts

Friday, October 23, 2026

The House at Devil's Neck by Tom Mead

 Nine strangers.
A notorious mansion.
An isolated island. 
A suicide that might be murder.
And a locked-room mystery.




The plot:  While Inspector George Flint of Scotland Yard investigates the apparent suicide of Rodney Edgecombe in London, Joseph Spector, former magician extraordinaire, heads to Devil's Neck for a weekend seance. When one of the other guests ends up dead, Spector immediately figures out it's murder. But finding the murderer is another matter.

My thoughts: Tom Mead's mysteries are like an homage to those classic locked-room Golden Age mysteries I love to read. There are always clever tricks and deceits in them. And Joseph Spector, a master of illusion himself, can spot them all. He's the other reason I really love these books. He and Flint work so well together. And even though they are apart for most of this book, I love how their two separate investigations come together at the end. There are a lot of surprises along the way, but also enough clues for you to figure it out if you're really clever. Which I was not. But I sure did have fun reading this one! 

My rating:  ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Happy Reading!