He is a member of the Crime Writers’ Association and the International Thriller Writers’ Organization. His debut novel Death and the Conjuror was published in 2022.
Mead applied the Page 69 Test to its sequel, The Murder Wheel, and reported the following:
Page 69 of The Murder Wheel places us at the scene of an extraordinary crime: the materialisation of a corpse inside a crate onstage during a magic show, in front of an audience of shocked onlookers. How was it done? And above all, why?Visit Tom Mead's website.
The crime seems completely impossible, and the fact that it took place in front of a large crowd during an illusionist’s performance adds a further element of mystification. It’s perhaps not surprising, then, that Scotland Yard Inspector George Flint is puzzled. “The whole thing is quite bizarre,” he observes, “How does a corpse appear from nowhere…?”
Fortunately for Flint, the retired conjuror (turned detective) Joseph Spector also happened to be in the audience when the macabre trick was pulled. As seen in my earlier novel Death and the Conjuror, Spector has a knack for explaining the inexplicable. Now that the auditorium has been cleared, Spector gets down to the business of investigation, first of all by questioning the surprisingly aloof magician whose show has been brought to an abrupt and ignominious halt. His stage name is “Professor Paolini,” and he is (perhaps understandably) none too keen on the investigators riffling through his magic paraphernalia.
Does he recognise the dead man? He claims not, but do we believe him? After all, in mysteries like this – particularly those set in the world of professional illusion – we must learn to trust no one.
Watching these events unfold from the wings is Edmund Ibbs, the young lawyer whose attendance at the magic show that evening seems like a coincidence, but may in fact be part of a grand and sinister criminal design.
Even bereft of context, page 69 of The Murder Wheel is an accurate reflection of the style and tone of the rest of the book. It features several of the key players analysing one of the narrative’s many puzzles, and as such it captures the tone of pervasive mystification that characterises the story as a whole. Also, the fact that the scene in question takes place onstage is appropriate, bearing in mind the theatrical milieu at the heart of the novel.
My Book, The Movie: Death and the Conjuror.
The Page 69 Test: Death and the Conjuror.
Q&A with Tom Mead.
--Marshal Zeringue
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