Tony R Cox is an ex-provincial UK journalist. The Simon Jardine series is based on his memories of the early 70s - the time of sex, drugs and rock 'n roll - when reporters relied on word of mouth and there was no internet, no mobile phones, not even a fax machine.
The verdict has to be “guilty”, and the sentence, death by hanging – it is 1938 after all.
The facts are clear, they cannot be disputed: Dominic Deans died from a single gunshot wound whilst in a cage at the top of a Ferris wheel, with only his wife, whose fingerprints were all over the revolver at her feet, in attendance. This is a classic ‘locked-room’ mystery, circa the Golden Age of mystery writing.
The investigation is cut and dried investigation until an astute, young solicitor for the wife asks awkward questions. Her replies seem to suggest she might actually be innocent, and ambitious legal brain and magic devotee Edmund Ibbs approaches Detective Inspector George Flint. The hard-bitten policeman rejected Ibbs’s protestations, but inadvertently directs him to seek the opinion of an aging, retired conjuror with a proven record of unravelling and solving the most intricate of mysteries. This dilapidated character is our hero, Joseph Spector, making a reappearance after Mead’s first novel, and the story comes to life.
There’s another murder, another ‘locked-room’ mystery, and young Ibbs is the bolt-on suspect, found just conscious with the murder weapon inescapably in his hand beside the body!
Tom Mead borrows his ‘impossible mysteries’ from the Golden Age of mystery writing and adds a subtle droll twist. Clues and hints fall like confetti in winter, brightening the darkest scenes of murder and hidden-away lives of potential villains. I defy even the cleverest of readers to know who committed the murders until the cerebral Spector, reveals all.
There is a delicate, enticing, engaging, lightly-touched stream of humour throughout. The reader, whilst absorbing the grim details of murders, is encouraged to smile, perhaps a brief laugh.
Mead’s first mystery novel, Death and the Conjuror, was globally lauded by readers and critics alike, The Murder Wheel, is an even better follow-up.
Read Tony’s Interview with Tom HERE
