The Great Merlini Series (# 1-4) by Clayton Rawson
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Overview: Clayton Rawson was an American mystery writer, editor, and amateur magician. His novels frequently invoke his great knowledge of stage magic and feature as their fictional detective The Great Merlini, a professional magician who runs a shop selling magic supplies.
He also wrote four short stories in 1940 about a stage magician named Don Diavolo, who appears as a principal character in one of the novels featuring The Great Merlini.
Genre: Fiction > Mystery/Thriller > Crime > Amateur Sleuth > Magic
Death from a Top Hat (Great Merlini #1):
When a necromancer is murdered, a magician takes the case
Freelance scribe Ross Harte is working on an essay about the sad state of the modern mystery novel when a scream comes from the hallway: "There is death in that room!" Harte finds a trio of conjurers trying to get into the apartment of his neighbor, the mysterious Dr. Cesare Sabbat, famed occultist and, for the past few minutes, a corpse.
They break down the door to find Sabbat lying in a pentagram, face twisted from the agonies of strangulation, but with no bruises on his neck. All the doors were locked, and the windows drop straight down to the river below. Only an escape artist could get out of that room, and Sabbat knew quite a few. To make sense of this misdirected muddle, the police bring in the Great Merlini, an illusionist whose specialty is making mysteries disappear.
The Footprints on the Ceiling (Great Merlini #2):
Investigating a haunted house, Merlini finds a fresh murder
"Wanted To Rent: Haunted House, preferably in rundown condition. Must be adequately supplied with interesting ghost."
Ross Harte knows that only the Great Merlini could be behind such a strange classified ad. A magician, salesman, and occasional sleuth, Merlini is producing radio investigations of paranormal activity, and he needs ghosts to put on-air. His first target is Skelton Island, an eerie speck of land just a few hundred feet off the coast of Manhattan, but seemingly out of another time.
On a late-night trip to the island, Merlini and Harte find the house perfectly rundown and well-stocked with ghosts, including one fresh one. Linda Skelton, granddaughter of the famous Scourge of Wall Street, has been poisoned with cyanide. Unless Merlini works quickly, he and Ross will join her among the ranks of Skelton Island’s famous spirits.
The Headless Lady (Great Merlini #3):
A circus owner’s murder produces a roster of bizarre suspects
Summer heat is choking New York, and the Great Merlini—conjurer, sleuth, and godson of P. T. Barnum—offers his friend Ross Harte a chance to get out of town. Before they can depart for the annual convention of the Society of American Magicians, a nervous woman enters Merlini’s shop, begging to purchase his most popular illusion: the headless lady. When the magician refuses to sell his last copy, she steals it.
She is the daughter of Major Hannum, a recently deceased circus magnate whose death may not have been an accident. Somewhere among the carnies, barkers, and freaks lurks a killer, and only Merlini can save the carnival from further bloodshed. The killer’s plot is as sly as a funhouse mirror, but no detective is more at home in a world where nothing is what it seems.
No Coffin for the Corpse (Great Merlini #4):
A murdered blackmailer haunts a captain of industry
When Ross Harte gets into a screaming match with his fiancée’s father, millionaire Dudley Wolff, the old man cuts Harte’s beloved out of his will. As far as Wolff is concerned, this is an empty threat, because he plans to live forever. He has a team of scientists working to extend his life as long as possible, and should they fail, a renowned psychic will contact him after his death. Wolff is obsessed with death’s mysteries, and he is about to get a first-hand look.
When a detective attempts to blackmail him, Wolff punches him in the jaw so hard that it stops the crook’s heart. Fearing scandal, Wolff and his staff bury the body in the woods. When the dead blackmailer comes back to haunt him, the millionaire is forced to call on Harte and his friend the Great Merlini, conjurer and sleuth, to banish the spirits that have brought death to his door.
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