This is a story of a murdered man, psychiatrist Anselm Rees, in a room locked from the inside. Set in the 1930's Inspector Flint of the police is stumped so confers with his friend Mr Spector a retired magician. Together they work through the comings and goings of the psychiatrist Anselm Rees and his patients, three in particular who appear to be hiding something, Then there is the odd couple Dr Rees daughter and her fiancé who appear to have nothing in common.
The books has quite a few twists and turns and both Flint and Spector find themselves caught up in the hunt, although as they draw nearer the tables start to turn and it appears that someone may be hunting them.
Is there a logical explanation or is it indeed an act of sheer magic! I really did enjoy the characters and the plot in this exciting whodunnit.
Thank you Penzler Publishers and Netgalley for the opportunity to read this digital ARC.

This is one that puzzle fanatics, illusion lovers and mystery aficionados will enjoy equally, as it comprises more than one ‘impossible’ or locked room mystery within a classic, golden-age mystery framework. Picture Jonathan Creek but set in 1930s London and without the romcom vibes distracting from the action, and that should give you an idea of what to expect.

When it comes to the murder, there is a reasonably restricted suspect pool, which should have made the plot more straightforward to follow, but not only does every character have their own secrets to hide, but the illusion-magic aspect of the mysteries made them absolutely impenetrable to me! The author/narrator notes towards the end of the story that all of the clues are there, and he is right, they are – I just had not a single hope of putting them together to come up with the correct solutions. I was very much poor Captain Hastings (from Agatha Christie’s Poirot stories) when it came to the final reveal scene!

I was particularly fond of the psychological slant to the storyline, with the victim being a psychiatrist and the suspects including three of his patients and his psychiatrically-trained daughter. I love any exploration of the quirks and shadows of the human mind, and here we get glimpses into anxiety, kleptomania and possibly hints of sociopathy… so very intriguing trying to work out how each individual psychological profile might match up to the crimes under investigation.

You would definitely need a sharper mind than mine if you hope to solve this mystery before the main characters do, but that didn’t stop me avidly devouring the book and wanting more of Joseph Spector and his impossible investigations.

Fans of locked room mysteries and logical conundrums, as well as fans of Dame Christie and similar authors, will enjoy the challenge of this puzzling mystery.

Review by Steph Warren of Bookshine and Readbows blog

Death and the Conjuror by Tom Mead was a brilliant murder mystery that kept me guessing till the very end. The story takes place in the 1930's with magician turned sleuth Joseph Spector solving three impossible cases. The murder of famous psychiatrist Anselm Rees within his locked from the inside office, a mysterious piece of artwork stolen under seemingly impossible circumstances, alongside an elevator boy's sudden murder within an elevator. It was a perfect read and had a satisfying ending. Highly recommend. A 4-star read!

I did not see that coming.

You got to love a good locked room mystery. Death and the Conjuror is a story set in 1930 London where a well know psychiatrist is found murdered in own home. The kicker, he was murdered in his study which only has one door and one window- both of which were locked… from the inside! This is where Inspector Flint of Scotland Yard and his enlisted magician assistant, Joseph Spector come in. We quickly realize that not only does the murder seem impossible, but there is a line of potential suspects with a ton of clues that the two must work through. The questions keep popping up, who did it? Was it the doctor’s daughter and her fiancé? One of his eccentric patients? And how did they do it?

I am happy to say I could not figure it out for the life of me and I loved that- good job Tom Mead. I am really looking forward to reading more. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in a real brain teaser.


Thank You to Tom Mead and Penzler Publishers, Mysterious Press, for the digital ARC provided through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review!

This was a quick, curious little novel. I was intrigued by the idea of a magician assisting with a murder case, but other than a few tricks and the knowledge of how the crime would have worked, we didn't really get to know Joseph Spector or his life as a magician. The mystery was properly tangled and difficult to solve. It held my attention up until the end, but I think I just never quite connected to Spector as a character, so his monologue where all was revealed didn't satisfy me. I do still think it is worth a read for those who like locked room and older style mysteries.

What an interesting mystery. It is written in the style of a generation ago and contains two puzzling mysteries. Both of the mysteries are of the locked room style where there seems to be no way the murder and theft could have possibly happened.

An essential theme of this novel is perception and we get a good dose of how deceptive it can be, both in magic and in murder. I like the several examples given as to how magic tricks are done. Readers are frequently encouraged to be thinking about how perception can be deceptive.

There is a grand reveal at the end, explaining how the seemingly impossible murder and theft were accomplished. We readers have been captive in believing what the witnesses have said about windows and doors being locked and other such facts. When accounts of alibis changed about three quarters through the novel, I guessed there were some other areas in which we readers had been fooled as well. That turned out to be the case. There was also a new feature of exterior architecture revealed we readers didn't know about.

This is a fun novel to exercise the little gray cells. I do feel the solution included some features of which we readers were unaware, such as the external architecture feature, but in general, an entertaining mystery for those who like ones similar to the style of Agatha Christie.

I received a complimentary egalley of this book through Partners in Crime Book Tours. My comments are an independent and honest review.

When a wealthy psychiatrist is murdered in his locked study, who do the detectives call when they’re stumped? In another series, they’d call Sherlock Holmes. In Tom Mead’s Death and the Conjuror, Detective George Flint calls Joseph Spector, a semi-retired magician, to help him figure out how the hell someone managed to brutally murder someone and escape from a locked room without anyone seeing or hearing anything. This quick read will be a delight for fans of fair-play mysteries who like to pick apart seemingly impossible cases.

Death and the Conjuror opens in Agatha Christie fashion by introducing us to all the players just before the crimes start to happen. We meet two actresses at a not-so-high-class London theatre who hate each other and get a glimpse of Spector as the curtain is about to go up on the theatre’s latest Gothic horror. In another part of London is an author of gruesome stories who seems to be losing a battle against his paranoia. In yet another part of London is the study of a very exclusive emigre psychiatrist (soon to be murder victim), who we meet as he is listening to one of his three patients talk about his haunting nightmares. Meanwhile, the psychiatrist’s daughter is preparing to go to the theatre with her rich, obnoxious fiance. By the next day, the psychiatrist is dead, a valuable painting is missing, and a whole lot of people are under investigation by Scotland Yard. Unfortunately, Scotland Yard—in the form of Detective Flint—is stumped. There’s no possible way for the murder to have occurred without something to point to the murderer, motive, and means.

I enjoyed every chapter of Death and the Conjuror: racing the detective and magician as they try to figure out what happened and whodunnit, evaluating the motives and characterizations of the various suspects, watching everyone race around either investigating or incriminating each other, and the brilliant reveal at the end. Everything in this book is perfect, especially the vibrant portraits of the very believable cast of characters. I could actually see this book playing out in my head. This book is a great way to, ahem, kill an afternoon.

This review is shorter than what I usually write but that’s only because I don’t want to ruin anything for any of you readers out there who want to pick it up. No hints or spoilers from me; you’ll have to read it to figure out what happened and why.

Witty, Engaging, and Classically Devious
It took me awhile to read this book. Not because there was anything wrong with it but because the book before it had also been a crime mystery. I was worried that it would not live up to the previous book's hype. Crime mystery novels are new to me, only ever having read two others in my young-adult/adult life. Waiting and underestimating this book was a great mistake. Tom Mead created an excellent piece of literature that can appeal to anyone, especially those who already have a love for classic detective crime mysteries.

Although I have not read many mystery books, I was a huge fan of the Scooby-Doo Mystery Gang as a child, Clue the board game, Sherlock Holmes cinema or TV, and anything that could test my mind's ability to follow the clues and solve the crime. This is what made it so nostalgic for me as a read. It was the perfect tale of crime and the who-done-it. That being said, it was the inclusiveness of the reader throughout the book that was so unique and refreshing. We get a terrible and convincingly "impossible" murder. With just enough suspects, clues, and twists you are invited to play along and see if you can solve the murder first. I wanted to sit down and map out the book as it unfolded so I could potentially solve it first. I was guessing and re-guessing for the entirety of the book. It was a delightful challenge that kept me captivated and thoroughly engaged.

John Spector is our "detective"; a man who was known for his magic tricks and ability to catch what the common eye couldn't. Dr. Anselm Rees is our victim, a psychiatrist dedicated to only three patients and a daughter who followed in his footsteps. Seemingly killed by impossible means, we set out to find who, well, dunnit. Each character we get introduced to, is at some point, convincingly the perfect suspect. They are all unique and filled with their own problems as we come to know them. By the end of the book there is not a character I hadn't suspected. And no, I myself did not crack the case by the end. However, as we started unfolding the murderer and how he/she did the dirty deed, I was enthusiastic about each and every clue I had missed and the genius behind the written crime.

I can honestly say I am officially a huge fan of classic golden age crime mysteries and better yet, a die hard fan of Tom Mead himself. John Spector was a witty and charming character to accompany you throughout the mystery. I will happily collect all his tales to come with. It was a quick read, having finished in only a day. I was thoroughly engaged throughout the entirety of the book. I was laughing and happily perplexed. I felt I was in on the adventure itself! One of my favorite features was at the end of the book. As the crime was being explained by our brilliant John Spector, we got a recount with the exact page numbers in which specific clues were occurring. It was brilliant! I enjoyed going back to those instances and slapping myself on the forehead for not catching it before.

Death and the Conjuror is on my top 5 list of 2022 releases and its author will forever be put on my watch list of new releases to come. Tom Mead's writing is classically devious. I excitedly await all the John Spector adventures to come. Highly recommend you go out and buy this book come July 12!!

4.5/5 Stars
*Thank you Netgalley for giving me the opportunity to read this book for my honest review!*

THANK YOU to Penzler Publishers & NetGalley for sending me this ARC. All reviews are honest reflections of my own opinions, always.


In an impossible riddle, a man lies dead.

Detective Flint finds himself surrounded by evidence most insurmountable. A crime scene, locked from the inside, with no way in or out that would not give away the murderer. Witnesses & suspects alike with alibies as confusing & secure as the room itself. Cunning deductions meet criminal mastermind when Detective Flint recruits the help of a magician turned sleuth to survey the facts of the case.

When magician Spector & Detective Flint begin to piece together the events, the people surrounding the case bring more & more mysteries to the greater puzzle, where their are many players, but only one true killer among them...




I had an absolutely wonderful time with this confounding who-dun-it. With an interesting cast of characters, & the 1930's theatre setting worked together to keep me guessing until the very end. The book gives you absolutely every clue within the story to solve the case yourself, (listed at the very end... but NO peeking!) but alas, I was unable to crack the case.

Not being familiar with the genre, I can't really compare this to other modern contemporaries other than to say, it lacks all of the cheesy-ness of other mass market paperback mysteries & has the flavor of one of those great golden age works.


Content Notes: Some slight language

Death and the Conjuror is an amazing locked room murder mystery. In 1930’s London, celebrity psychiatrist Anselm Rees is found dead, and due to the strange nature of the case, Scotland Yard detective Flint, requests the help of a magician named Spectre. Together these two help to uncover what happened to Anselm Rees, whilst also, discovering the case of a missing painting!

I adored this book. Everything about this time era and books set in this time era is just exquisite. Tom Mead is an extremely clever writer and, for once, I was unable to work out the ending! It was not predictable and provided the reader with the twists that even Agatha Christie would have been proud of! It is true to its genre and manages to keep you hooked on each moment wondering whether the murderer will be revealed soon.

The characters are so well written, and, even some that only have a short appearance throughout the novel are written so well that you have a whole picture of their behaviours and personalities. This is especially hard to do, and many background characters often have the same feel/behaviours/characteristics about them so they kind of fade away. However, Tom’s writing was so unique that you remembered everyone, and I mean everyone. In my eyes everyone became a suspect!

I highly recommend this book and am so thrilled to be able to share this with my followers on social media! Thanks again for allowing me to read this book and I cannot wait for release day!

Set in 1930s London, this refreshingly original book is cleverly written with spades of wit, a fabulous cast of characters (listed in the front of the book), brilliant red herrings and an unpredictable solution. Death and the Conjuror is the epitome of Golden Age perfection and I had to keep reminding myself it was written recently. The language and social mores of the era are beautifully captured. Pure gold.

Magician-turned-sleuth Joseph Spector has a swift and cunning mind and is no stranger to solving impossible crimes. However, even he was temporarily baffled at the mysterious death of psychiatrist Anselm Rees, found in his locked study with no murder weapon in sight. Scotland Yard detective George Flint and Spector weed through oodles of secrets, deceit and even theft as they question an eclectic cast of characters. That ending!

My favourite aspects of this book (and there are many) include the delectable and unrivaled Golden Age writing, interesting characters and impossible to solve locked-room mystery. The writing is rich in detail and practically had me gnawing on my arm in anticipation to get to the end, yet I did not want it to be over! The magician slant is a stroke of genius with so many future possibilities and a fresh set of sleuthing skills.

If you seek a truly smart murder mystery with plenty of "aha" moments, do read this stunner. It should appeal to both Golden Age mystery and general mystery readers. It will leave you breathlessly confounded...it is THAT good!

My sincere thank you to Penzler Publishers and NetGalley for the privilege of reading this marvellous book. What a treat!

Tom Mead has written a great murder mystery from a bygone era that will hold any audience captive through to the amazing end. With wonderful characters and settings, you immediately get lost in this mystery world of who-done-it and stay entranced wanting more. Even though I’m sad to finish Death and the Conjuror, I hope Mead plans to write more stories incorporating his investigator/magician duo which added such a fresh and unique spin. I will be purchasing this book to support a wonderful author, not only for my personal library, but for many friends as well. Excellent read and suspenseful cliff hangers. I recommend to anyone young or old.

I got Sherlock Homles, who done it novel vibes, I really enjoyed trying to figure it out.
Safe to say I didn't succeed, it had me guessing right up until the end, brilliant.

I did struggle to stay focused with the long chapters but I'm so glad I stuck it out.

I really hope it becomes a series because who doesn't love a crime solving conjuror.

Special thanks to NetGalley, the publisher and the author for a free, electronic ARC of this novel received in exchange for an honest review

When a prominent psychiatrist Dr. Rees is murdered it is up to Inspector George Flint to find the killer. It's a locked room mystery but with so many people with secrets to hide amongst them a prominent actress, an author and a musician. Helping the Inspector is a magician Joseph Spector. Finding out the murderer is a journey into the secrets that people hide, keep and try not to reveal in a truly twisty journey. I am a fan of mysteries even though I am terrible at figuring out the murderer. Half the fun of this novel was finding out exactly what each suspect was hiding and why.

1930s London, and famed psychiatrist Dr Anselm Rees is alone in his study. After telling his housekeeper to expect a visitor, a mysterious figure arrives, with his hat and scarf obscuring his face. After meeting with Rees, the visitor departs. And soon thereafter, Rees is found in his study with his throat cut.

With no one entering the house after the departure of the mysterious visitor, it would seem obvious that he was the murderer. Except that Rees’ housekeeper, someone with a habit of listening at doors, heard her employer in the study making a telephone call after the stranger left. And the fact that both the door and window to the study, the only entrances, were both locked from the inside. And suicide is out of the question, as there is no trace of a weapon.

The murderer seems to be utterly impossible. And the best person to explain the impossible is a magician. Enter Joseph Spector…

“Once upon a time, this would be the point in the narrative where a challenge is issued to the reader. […] These days such practices are antiquated and rather passé. But who am I to stand in the way of a reader’s fun?”

I’m in a bit of a bad mood today. I was supposed to go to the Bodies From The Library conference but thanks to a conflagration of events (including an actual conflagration) getting to London proved to be more trouble than it was worth. So it would take one hell of a book to impress me today.

This is one hell of a book.

Tom Mead is someone who I’ve had a bit of contact with on the Interwebs, someone who I’ve managed to convert to the way of the Flynn, so it was a massive amount of trepidation that I approached this book. What if I didn’t like it? If I was critical about it, would he start bad-mouthing Brian? Note, I don’t think he’s read The Grim Maiden yet, so he might start doing that anyway one day. Thankfully, this is something I don’t have to worry about. As I go through the year, I keep a mental list of titles that might end up being best book of the year. There were four books on it before today – The Red Death Murders, The Book Of Murder, The Botanist and The Chapel In The Woods. And now there are five.

This is the sort of homage to the Golden Age that I want to read. Because this book could have been written in the Golden Age – people who want to set books in that era should really take notes (apart from Dolores Gordon-Smith, she gets it). Every character in the tale is in the tale for a reason. They all contribute something to the plot with nobody being there merely as a distraction. There’s a complex but followable plan from the villain, with everything happening for a reason. The characters are all distinctive from the minute they appear on the page. The sleuthing team – Joseph Spector and Inspector Flint, a good copper who knows when he is out of his depth – work well together. The plot keeps moving forward, without huge chunks of water-treading dialogue, and nobody lies just for the sake of it. Oh yes, and it’s got clues in it! Proper clues! That makes a pleasant change from my recent reads.

I’m not going into the plot – I’ll not spoil that for you – but it’s the sort of book, even before Tom presents his beautifully written Challenge To The Reader, that had me thinking and theorising (almost completely incorrectly) as each chapter came and went.

You could describe this book as a homage to John Dickson Carr (note the similarity in set-up, and only in set-up, to The Hollow Man) and possibly to Clayton Rawson, but I’m going to go one step further. I don’t think this is hyperbole, but I think this book is on a par with the best of John Dickson Carr. This is how you write books set in the Golden Age – other homage and pastiche authors should take note. This is a magnificent book and deserves the widest audience possible.

Not one, not two, but three locked room mysteries prove to be no match for magician Joseph Spector in 1930s London. Keeps you continually surprised and guessing until the end.

Greatly enjoyed this! This was very much in the golden age mystery pattern and Joseph Spector reminded me quite a lot of Ellery Queen and Philo Vance. I also liked the little quotes and mentions of other authors of that time, just as Carr. Great read!

I really enjoyed this classic mystery. Usually I read more thrillers but the idea of a magician solving a mystery seemed like an interesting concept. He definitely gave me Poirot vibes at times. The story kept me guessing the whole time- I had no idea who the killer was! Overall a fun mystery that I will be recommending to patrons.

It is London 1936 and Dr. Anselm Rees is found murdered in his study with all of the doors and windows locked and with no murder weapon left behind. Inspector George Flint of Scotland Yard is puzzled and can't determine how the murder was committed so he defers to the expertise of magician and conjurer Joseph Spector. Spector works on both this case and a case that he was separately hired for that involved a painting that went missing from a locked room. The two cases end up being intertwined and combo of Flint and Spector work together to solve both mysteries.

I loved not only the mystery of this book but also the atmosphere and vibe that the story gave. I hope that there are more books involving Flint and Spector.

Plot: 4
Characters: 4
Writing Style: 5
Cover: 3.5
Enjoyment: 4
Buyable/Re-readable?: Yes

A very quick, quirky, and witty read. Sometimes I am able to "turn off" my brain and allow myself to not guess who the culprit is and I was able to do so with this; thus, I didn't know who the murderer was and upon the reveal found it made sense and was acceptable. There is even a pause wherein the book allows the reader a moment to reflect; titled 'INTERLUDE WHEREIN THE READER’S ATTENTION IS RESPECTFULLY REQUESTED', it references times of olde when the narrative would challenge you to sort through the clues and figure it all out. Very charming, very nostalgic.

The pacing was perfect, the switches in third POV chapters fresh, and I wouldn't mind reading more of Spector's adventures (as I'm assuming, this being book one, we will be getting). Can't say I saw the point in one of the characters, unless she was meant to be a distraction? On that note, the red herrings were fun. Definitely reminded me of Guy Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes series and Rian Johnson's "Knives Out". Hell, even a little bit of Landis and Lynn's "Clue: The Movie".

Bonus points for keeping British English spellings!