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Sleuth and illusionist Joseph Spector investigates his most complex case yet in this gripping new locked-room murder mystery, set in an English country house just before the Second World War.
Hampshire, 1938. Victor Silvius is confined in a private sanatorium after attacking prominent judge Sir Giles Drury. When Sir Giles starts receiving sinister letters, his wife suspects Silvius. Meanwhile, Silvius’ sister Caroline is convinced her brother is about to be murdered… by none other than his old nemesis Sir Giles.
Caroline seeks the advice of Scotland Yard’s Inspector Flint, while the Drurys, eager to avoid a scandal, turn to Joseph Spector. Spector, renowned magician turned sleuth, has an uncanny knack for solving complicated crimes – but this case will test his powers of deduction to their limits.
At a snowbound English country house, a body is found is impossible circumstances. Spector and Flint’s investigations collide as they find themselves trapped by the snowstorm where anyone could be the next victim – or the killer…
My thanks to Poppy of Ransom PR for the tour invitation and to Tom for providing the extract from the beginning of the book, which you can read below. Congratulations to Tom for today’s publication day. Cabaret Macabre is the third in the Joseph Spector Locked Room Mysteries (the others being Death and the Conjuror (1) and The Murder Wheel (2). Cabaret Macabre is published by Aries, an imprint of Head of Zeus and available in ebook, audio book and hardback (1 August 2024) with the paperback following in April 2025.
EXTRACT
The steamer trunk had leather handles, brass fittings and a dark, hardboard shell. As such it was like any other steamer trunk. You might say its only notable feature was its location: washed ashore on Rotherhithe beach, where it lay looking soggy and pitiful alone on the pebbles in the chilly morning sun. Nine-year-old Fred Lindsay and his seven-year-old sister Enid were laughing and bickering as they crested the dune and got their first glimpse of it on the flats. Benny, their beloved Jack Russell, bounded over with his tongue flapping, and commenced an exhaustive investigation with his probing nostrils. But the children were cautious.
They glanced at one another and Enid, the braver of the two, made the first move. She skipped towards the trunk, her head brimming with fantasies of pirates’ treasure. This was the sort of thing that happened to little girls like her, she thought. They found treasure, and got whisked away on adventures.
As she drew closer, the stench rolled over her like the tide. It rooted her to the spot and made her gag. It smelt worse than anything the Thames had ever spewed up before.
“What? What’s the matter?” said Fred. Then the stench hit him too.
Once they had got over the initial shock of it (Benny the Jack Russell was still frolicking around the trunk), the siblings decided they’d better try and crack it open. They didn’t want to, not really, but they felt it their duty.
Careful to breathe through his mouth, Fred dropped to his haunches and examined the brass clasp. It was caked with clumpy sludge from the bottom of the river, but otherwise seemed to be in decent working order.
“Pass me that, would you?” he said, indicating a chipped bit of slate on the ground. Enid brought it over to him; it was heavy, so she needed both hands. He took it from her and swung for the clasp. The edge of the slate impacted with a thump. Fred swung again. This time, some of the dried mud came away like clay. One more swing, he thought, and they were in.
It actually took about six more swings, but finally, with an eerie sigh of escaping air, the buckle snapped and the trunk lid splayed open. It made Fred and Enid jump. Even Benny was a bit suspicious. The three of them stood to examine what was inside.
Neither of the children screamed, though both wanted to. Eventually it was Enid, the brave one, who broke the silence.
“What have they done to his face?” she said.
ii.
Inspector George Flint gazed out at the iron-grey surface of the Thames from beneath the brim of his slightly-too-large bowler hat (a gift from his wife, who often overestimated his dimensions) and sighed. He chewed his unlit pipe philosophically, then forced himself to look down at the mess inside the trunk.
Sergeant Jerome Hook, who was younger but steelier about such matters, hadn’t taken his eyes off the tangle of limbs and torso. He said: “Somebody didn’t want us to identify him.”
“Looks that way all right. Only reason I can think of for smashing his face into mush like that. But what I’m wondering about is his hands.”
The body in the steamer trunk was male and had dark hair. As for distinguishing features, that was about it. The trunk had been in the water for at least a week. The body had the creamy, greenish tinge of old tapioca. It was also mottled with mould and bruises.
“Hallo there,” called a voice through the wintry river haze. The bulky outline of a greatcoated man with a doctor’s bag came slowly into view.
“Doctor Findler,” Flint said by way of greeting, “you’re a sight for sore eyes.”
“I might say the same of you,” answered Findler through a yawn. “Why’ve you brought me to this godforsaken spot?”
“See for yourself.” Findler was a year or two younger than Flint, and it showed. He was clean-shaven and his face lacked Flint’s ruddiness. Nonetheless, he was capable and well-versed in what he referred to as the ‘dark arts.’ He had built his life around death, and so neither held much terror for him. Findler was a strict Darwinian when it came to murder, with little sympathy for the victim who had failed to run fast enough, or picked a fight with the wrong man, or got in the way of a stray bullet. He was unmoved by the contents of the trunk, and peered at them in the way a window shopper might peer into Debenham & Freebody; with the measured curiosity and mild distaste of finding last season’s suits still displayed behind the glass.
“What can you tell us about him?” said Flint.
“Nothing we haven’t seen before. I’m tempted to call it a gangland killing. Quasi-professional. Except for one thing.”
“Which is?” But Flint already knew the answer.
“His hands.”
iii.
Back at Scotland Yard, Flint shut himself in his Thameside office to read and reread the scant details he had scribbled in his notebook. Today’s discovery offered little scope for interpretation. Dark-haired male, aged between twenty-five and forty-five.
And what of the trunk itself? It was depressingly ordinary. The sort that might be purchased from any local shop. No travel badges or labels. Attempts to trace it would lead precisely nowhere.
But Flint kept coming back to the hands. If this were a gangland killing, and the victim known to the law, Scotland Yard would most likely already have his prints somewhere on file.
That’s what troubled Flint. It made him wonder if maybe this wasn’t a gangland killing at all.
Tom Mead is an aficionado of Golden Age crime fiction. His short stories have appeared in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine and Lighthouse, as well as Best Crime Stories of the Year (ed. Lee Child). Death and the Conjuror, his debut novel, featuring illusionist turned sleuth Joseph Spector, was highly acclaimed by the UK and US press and was one of Publishers Weekly’s Mysteries of the Year. He lives in Derbyshire, England.
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