Latest Books The Big Thrill Recommends: CABARET MACABRE by Tom Mead

The Big Thrill Recommends: CABARET MACABRE by Tom Mead

Recommended by Debbie Burke

“A riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.” Winston Churchill’s quote might have been describing CABARET MACABRE by Tom Mead, an elaborately constructed puzzle mystery set at an English country estate in 1938.

A large cast of characters gathers for Christmas at Judge Drury’s mansion, the same date and location as the suspicious death of Drury’s secretary 10 years before. At that time, her death was ruled a suicide by strychnine. But Victor Silvius, the victim’s lover, was positive the judge had murdered her. Heartbroken and enraged, Victor stabbed Drury, who survived. The powerful judge hushed up the incident by incarcerating Victor in a brutal sanitorium run by a doctor who’s Drury’s friend.

Now Victor’s sister wants to reopen the case and enlists the help of Inspector Flint of Scotland Yard and Joseph Spector, a magician/illusionist with Sherlockian powers of deduction.

As Flint and Spector investigate, one suspect after another is murdered in rapid succession. Each dies by different means: knife, shotgun blast, electrocution, decapitation. Is there one killer or many?

Despite gruesome events, author Mead injects wry humor. A youthful male character is described as “trying to grow a beard, a drastic undertaking that took up most of his waking hours.”

A grim housekeeper shows Spector to his bedroom at the mansion, informing him this is the same room where the unfortunate young woman died a decade before. But he needn’t be concerned—she’d changed the sheets.

Thread by thread, the brilliant Spector unties a Gordian knot of illusions to a riveting conclusion.

CABARET MACABRE is wonderfully intriguing on the first read, but to fully appreciate Mead’s complex plotting, it is well worth a second read.

The Big Thrill Recommends: CABARET MACABRE by Tom Mead