Description

A birthday celebration at Seattle s historic Paramount Theater turns tragic when a fire erupts on stage, leaving behind smoldering clues and a magician burnt beyond recognition. When the smoke clears, private detectives Alan Stewart and Vera Deward once again find themselves thrust into the depths of an international mystery. Frustrated by a performance troupe of Russian Émigrés, magicians, and dancers, who know more than they are willing to tell, Alan and Vera seek the help of a famous psychic, Alexander The Man Who Knows All. Will Alexander be able to shed light on this mystery, or is he just another smoke and mirrors illusionist seeking to profit while standing on the ruins of his dismantled competition? As the body count climbs in famous Seattle theaters, Vera and Alan join with trusted police detective, Ben Kearney, and together they employ hard-knock techniques, psychic predictions, potions, and good old-fashioned sleuthing, discovering that in the world of magic, sleight-of-hand and treachery can reach beyond the stage, drag up the historical past, open old wounds, and threaten the present. Leave it to Neil Low to bring us Depression Era Seattle, steeped in the Wobblies labor movement, seasoned with the prophecies of The Man Who Knows All, stirred with the not-distant history of the Russian Bolshevik Revolution and its controversial and cruel murder of the Russian Czar and family, and strained through the milieu of the now lost spectacle of magnificent and opulent theaters. I won t speculate on the mind that brings us this scintillating combination of entanglements, except to say that it creates a fine story. –Lowen Clausen, Author of The River Once again, Vera Deward and Alan Stewart are on the case, this time solving brutal crimes in Seattle s historic Paramount Theater, Orpheum Theater, and Moore Theater. As it is with all of Low s fatal fables in the series, they crack with the verisimilitude of a real-life police detective. It s like he s taking dictation from Hell. On the boards or off, Low s Theater of the Crime is a show-stopper! –Don Roff, Author of Zombies: A Record of the Year of Infection