The library game

Pandian delights with her fourth whodunit featuring disgraced Las Vegas magician Tempest Raj (after A Midnight Puzzle). When her performing career ended in ruin, Tempest returned to her small California hometown to join the family business: a secret staircase construction firm. The firm's latest client, Harold Gray, hired the company to convert his home into a library focused on classic detective fiction just before he died. Now, Harold's heir and grandnephew, Cameron, has taken control of the project. He asks for his own living quarters above the library and goes ahead with his late uncle's plan to host an interactive murder mystery play, written by Tempest and her friend Ivy, to christen the new space. After one of the actors is killed while rehearsing a stunt with a toy gun, the bad situation turns truly bizarre. Not only had the victim somehow switched places at the last second with another actor, who's now missing, but then the body disappears altogether. Drawing on her expertise as an illusionist, Tempest sets out to solve the impossible crime, despite knowing she's up against a roomful of suspects who know their way around a murder mystery. Tempest remains an immensely likable heroine, and Pandian's shrewd puzzle plot arrives at a satisfying and surprising conclusion. This will enchant fans of Golden Age mysteries. (Mar.)

A theatrical murder mystery turns from entertainment to crime scene when an actor turns up dead and then disappears. Transforming Gray House's cottagelike structure into the Gray House Library of Classic Detective Fiction is a labor of love for Tempest Raj. It's exactly the sort of clever and imaginative transformation her family's San Francisco Bay--area based Secret Staircase Construction company is known for. Gray House's late owner, Harold Gray, didn't live long enough to see his dream come to life, but his heir, Cameron, has ably taken his place in guiding the work. Though Tempest and her team haven't fully realized Harold's plan yet, there's already a murder mystery play evening in the works to celebrate and take advantage of the space. Written by Tempest's best friend, Ivy Youngblood, the play, set in the 1930s, is almost derailed from its dress rehearsal when actor Lucas Cruz doesn't show. Luckily, Sanjay Rai, Tempest's dear friend from her past career as a magician, willingly steps in to play Lucas' role. All goes well until the mystery gets a little too real-life (and death), and the reason Lucas couldn't turn up becomes all too apparent. Except it doesn't, because almost as soon as he shows up with a bullet hole in his chest, his body vanishes. Now Tempest and her friends aren't sure whether to call the police, especially since Tempest doubts that Hidden Creek Det. Blackburn will be amused by a case of a vanishing corpse. There's welcome character development and a plot that ends with a bang, all with a touch of whimsy. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.