For starters, I have not read the first 2 books in this series. I think this book works well as a standalone but likely would be easier to get into if more background was known prior. It took me a minute to figure it all out. Once I did, I really liked it! Tempest is our FMC who is an illusionist. With magic performances as a theme in a spooky theater, combined with her family’s business of building hidden rooms/stairs/structure and Indian family dynamics (complete with some recipes added in at the end 😋), this was an entertaining read. The mystery was intricate with decently hidden twists. I liked the characters and easily connected with them.

No issues with the narration to mention. I enjoyed the performance and would for sure listen to them again!

audiobook ARC: thank you NetGalley, Gigi Pandian and Macmillan audio

Book three of the series is just as good as one and two. The mystery within a mystery comes to completion and I for one hope that this is not the last in this series. Secret Staircase Construction company faces not only a law suit but also ghosts of the past. This is a stand alone cozy but you really should start at the beginning to get all the nuisances related to Moriarty. That being said, my mind was completely blown by the reveal. Ms. Pandian does an expert job of crafting this story with misdirection and magic, not a paranormal sort of magic, just good old fashioned LA style Magic Castle magic. This one starts out with an attempted murder, a lawsuit, a career ending accident, two deaths, missing files both international and local, and Pop-Up justice. Great plot build and so many skillfully laid red herrings that I was creating a suspect list that was not getting anymore narrow until the pieces started falling into place for Tempest. A little bittersweet in some parts and I would really like for her to pick a guy because her two suitors and similar yet very different. This one was definitely a puzzle with so many pieces, similar to a mystery puzzle where you don't know what the picture is supposed to look like until all of the pieces are in place. This puzzle kept me going page by page and piece by piece until the big reveal that was absolutely jaw-dropping. I would give this 5 out of 5 puzzle pieces. Kudos to the narrator as well for doing such a great job with the voices for each character, it really brought the story to "life" for me.

If you love locked room mysteries and clever whodunits (not to mention amazing secret room designs!), this series is for you.

A Midnight Puzzle by Gigi Pandian is the latest installment in the Secret Staircase series. Like the first two books on the series, Tempest Raj finds herself in the middle on another impossible mystery. This series has interesting characters (I especially love Tempest’s grandparents!) and locked room mysteries that keep you guessing. Sprinkle in Secret Staircase Construction’s intricate projects and Tempest’s magician background and it’s just pure fun to read.

I listened to the audiobook and I highly recommend it! The narrator is the perfect voice for Tempest. The pacing is great and the story works well in audio format.

A note on the series: You can pick this latest mystery up as a standalone and read it, however - in addition to the whodunit in this novel there’s also an overarching mystery of what happened to Tempest’s mother. I think you’ll enjoy this book much more if you start at the beginning with Under Lock and Skeleton Key.

I adore this series. I think this series is such a unique cozy mystery series with the magician element. I definitely like the main character, and feel connected to the side characters as well.. I enjoyed the set up of the mystery and how much more this mystery utilized the magician element in comparison to the other two. However, I did enjoy the first and second installment more than this one, but this one was still really strong. I didn't love one of the reveals, but besides that I really enjoyed where the story went and I did not see it coming. I cannot wait for the next in the series!

I really enjoyed Under Lock and Skeleton Key so I was excited to read another story with Tempest and gang. I continue to be impressed by the narrator’s ability to do the various voices and accents required in this story. Also, I need a cookbook with all her grandfather’s recipes.

This book was my first introduction to this series and author. I enjoyed the mystery and the character dramas. I absolutely love the idea behind the secret staircase construction company. Who doesn't like fantasizing about secret rooms, though? The only thing I did not enjoy was the jealousy between guys over the main character Tempest when none of them were even serious enough to warrant such jealousy. I loved the character of Grandpa Ash, who was so sweet and enjoyed taking care of people and providing them with delicious home cooked meals.

This is a review of the audiobook!

This is the third book in the Secret Stairway mystery series and I think this is the best!!

First off you really need to read at least the first book in the series “Under Lock and Skeleton Key”. This one introduces of the characters, and there are a lot! It's a gradual build-up of characters throughout the three books.

The novel is told through Tempest Raj’ POV. Tempest has been surprised that she is really enjoying working for the family company!! She has settled into designing architectural puzzles. They are a great group of friends and family and everyone’s job is different.

Now the reputation of the company is in question. A customer, Julian Rhodes, is bringing a lawsuit against the company. His wife was seriously injured when she fell down the new staircase they built. He feels that Secret Staircase is responsible for it’s “shoddy” construction.

The blurb on this novel is lengthy and I don’t want to ruin this very engaging read by talking about the plot.

This one has everything you’ll love:

Interesting and fun combination of Scottish and Indian parents, the food sounds so delicious!!

Great characters that I’m getting to know better with every book.

A quite twisty and intricate plot that was so well done it kept me guessing for a long time.

In this novel Tempest finally feels some resolution for the death of her aunt and the disappearance of her mother. I think this is a great transition – now Tempest can get on with her life and I can’t wait to come along with her.

I really enjoy this series and highly recommend this novel to everyone. FYI no harm comes to the pet bunny named Abracadabra - perhaps excessive snuggling?

I received an audiobook from the publisher through NetGalley. It was my pleasure to read and review this title.

This was the first book I have read by Gigi Pandian and I'm really glad I found this author. This is part of a series but I thought it was fine as a standalone. I would like to go back and read the other two books. I really enjoyed Soneela Nankani telling this story. I was entertained through out this book. I felt like this had great pacing and plenty of possible culprits. This was a fun mystery that I couldn’t get enough of and can't wait to see what Gigi comes up with next. I would recommend this book.


Thank you NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for allowing me to listen to this ARC for my honest opinion.

An edge of your seat mystery that bring closure to the series of Tempest Raj, stage magician! Another murder for Tempest to solve- but this one brings her even closer to discovering the real mystery of who murdered her aunt and mom- and destroying the Raj family curse once and for all! This fun mystery pulls back the curtain on magic to reveal the solution to the most important question of Tempests career!

This was a fairly entertaining book, but it was simply not for me. I did not connect with the story much or the characters. It was a miss for me.

3.5 stars rounded down

I was really disappointed by this story. It was about 15 or 20 chapters longer than it should have been. If this were a stand alone mystery it would have been fine, but as the third (final?) book in a series it just didn't quite work. There was too much going on, too many murders, and entire plotlines of "misdirection" that just wound up making the story feel like a slog. The author reintroduces the main characters over and over again and it felt tedious as someone who'd read the first 2 books within the last year.

If you've never read the first two books then I recommend skipping them and only reading this one, or skip this one and only read the second one which is going to stand as my favourite.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for the audio ARC.

Thank you to the publisher & NetGalley for the audiobook.

I just found my new favorite author!

This was such a fun listen. The narrator was great at giving each character a unique voice.

I’ve already gotten 2 of this author’s other books (how have I never heard of her before???)

This is book 3 in the Secret Staircase Mystery series. I hadn’t read the first two books and I felt it worked well as a standalone. I listened to the audiobook for this one and I really liked the narrator, but I thought there were a couple too many accents required and a few times it got a little muddled on who was talking. I like a good locked room mystery so I was initially very caught up with this one, but I thought it moved slower than it needed to, and I found some bits to be repetitive (I was really tired of the words booby trap). I really did like Tempest and her friends (even if I needed her to just pick one of the love interests). Tempest’s world is rocked when the man suing her family business is found dead at the door to the theater she is renting with a note written in her handwriting telling him to go inside on the door. It appears the door had been booby trapped and this is reinforced when one of the paramedics is injured. Tempest slowly realizes that there are ties between this murder and the murders of her mother and aunt that took place years before. I gave this one 3.5 stars rounded up because I did like the characters a lot.

This is the third installment in The Secret Staircase Mysteries by Gigi Pandian. Once again we are following along as Tempest Raj, a former Vegas magician, is trying to solve a murder in her hometown but this time the ties back to her own family’s past will play a much bigger role.
This was another fantastic cozy mystery from Pandian. I love that we finally got answers to the questions that have been tucked in the previous stories in the series. I was worried that getting these answers would mean and end to one of my new favorite series but the ending definitely left open the continuation of Tempest’s adventures in crime solving. I also once again thought Soneela Nankani did an amazing job with the narration of the audiobook. I can’t wait to see where Pandian takes Tempest story next.
Thank you Netgalley and Macmillan Audio for access to this title in exchange for an honest review.

This is such a fun series. I like all the descriptions of magic and the secret passageways. I can’t believe this is book 3 in the series. It can definitely be read as a stand alone, but this one advances Tempest’s search into her aunt and mother’s death. The author provides plenty of detail for a reader to enjoy the book, but I think those that have read the series are more invested in those cases.

Instead of a locked room mystery, this time there is an impossible crime. An enemy of the Tempest family is found dead in a theater and they are at the front of the suspect list as the police investigate.

The cozy mystery is the focus of this book and series, but I also love the cast of characters and the friendship and family at the core. There is always a meal (and recipes at the end of book) shared and the food descriptions always make me hungry.

For being what I’d consider a cozy mystery, the plot was complex and kept me guessing. There were red herrings and misdirections that I fell for.

Soneela Nankani narrates the audiobook and does a fabulous job with bringing all the characters and their accents to life. This is one I enjoyed listening to as much as I enjoyed reading.

Such a fun series for anyone that appreciates magic, locked room mysteries or interesting characters.

3.5 stars rounded up
Although this is a bit repetitive at times, I am thrilled that the mysteries that have continued through all three of these books about what happened to Tempest's aunt and mom are finally wrapped up satisfactorily. This is a series that should be read in order as the characters and setup covers all three books. There's a cliffhanger at the end, so we're set up to continue with the mystery solving.

This is a fairly cozy mystery series featuring former magician Tempest Raj and her family's secret staircase (and room, etc) construction company. There's a large cast of characters that are involved and they are all trying to solve the mystery of what happened to Tempest's mom five years previously, but other mysteries pop up as well.

Overall I enjoyed the characters and the mystery in this one. It could be a bit shorter without quite so much repetition of what has happened in past books or even in the current book. Other than that, this is a fun series with entertaining characters.

I listened to the audiobook and the narrator (who has also narrated the previous books) does an excellent job keeping the characters distinct and is fantastic with the accents.

I figured out who is was early on, but the why and a couple other twists were really surprising! There were magicians tricks and family secrets that kept me very entertained. I like that this wrapped up the overall family mystery as well as the murder in this book. It was so good!

Thank you @macmillan.audio and @minotaur_books for the #gifted ARC/ALC!

I’m so thrilled this delightful mystery series is continuing! I adored the first two books in the series and A MIDNIGHT PUZZLE did not disappoint with another locked room type mystery this time with a murderous door at a haunted theater.

I love how clever this series is. It reminds me so much of the Nancy Drew and Agatha Christie books I grew up reading and sparked my love of mysteries. They aren’t quite what I would call a cozy mystery but also aren’t full of the shock factor twists that many thrillers have now.

Tempest Raj, the MC, has a great character arc over the first three books in the series and I’m glad that one of the mystery arcs across the books has finally come to a resolution. But now there is even more room for growth for these characters and the ending is definitely set up for a book 4!

I listened to the audio and adored the narrator. She does an excellent job of representing Tempest’s Scottish and Indian heritage as well as the diverse cast of her family and friends.

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This was the third novel in the Secret Staircase Series. I haven’t read the first two, but I did not really enjoy this one. I have learned over the years that cozy mysteries are not usually for me. A lot of the reviews do say that you must read the first two to fully understand what is going on and who the characters are. There were a lot of characters and at some points hard to keep track of. Jumping in on the third book left a lot of open holes. It was an entertaining read, but not memorable. There were many repetitive lines where I wasn’t sure if I had gone backwards somehow in the audiobook. Oh well…. on to the next.

3.5 The cover of Gigi Pandian's new book - A Midnight Puzzle - was what first caught my eye. And the description sounded good.

"Multiple award-winning author Gigi Pandian and her sleuth Tempest Raj return in A Midnight Puzzle, where an old theater reveals a deadly booby trap, secrets, and one puzzle of a mystery."

Midnight Puzzle is the third book in the Secret Staircase series. I really liked the descriptions of the "illusion architecture" that the Secret Staircase Construction Company builds.

Illusion is a large part of the series. Many members of the Raj family and their circle are professional illusionists and magicians. I thought this was a novel idea. Between that and the building company there are many opportunities for trouble.

Tempest Raj is the main character. She drives the storyline forward and has her hand in everything that's going on. There is a really large group of supporting players. A lot. I admit to having a hard time to keep track of who was who and how they fit in to the list of players.

The plot is a busy one as well. Pandian includes many twists and turns on the way to the final 'ta da". I initially appreciated the ups, downs and turnarounds of the narrative, but I started to tire as the book progressed. For this listener, it was overkill in the end.

The narrator for A Midnight Puzzle was award winner Soneela Nankani. She did a really great job of bringing Pandian's work to the audio format. She enunciates well. She has come up with a voice for every single cast member. Quite commendable - accents, age and more. Nankani also captures the action and emotion of the book with her voice. Again, really well done - I could hear every exclamation mark.

A Midnight Puzzle was an good listen for me, but not a stand out.