I have tried to read this novel on several occasions and after a couple years now, just can't finish it.I was attracted to this because of the locked room mystery angle to it. This premise comes early in the story and is resolved fairly early as well. Here is some more of the opening:
Welcome to our show.
We have a number of thrills in store for you over the next two days as our illusionists, our magicians, our sleight-of-hand artists weave their spells to delight and captivate you.
The short of it is that this is a presentation given by the crazy person that's out and about killing people to show off his magic tricks. After this intro that's in all italics we get a break and the story starts thus:
The building looked as if it’d seen its share of ghosts.
I like the sentence. It's short and contains foreshadowing. Then there is description:
Gothic, sooty, dar. Sandwiched between two high-rises on the Upper West Side, capped with a widow's walk and many shuttered windows. The building dated from the Victorian era and had been a boarding school at one point and later a sanatorium, where the criminally insane lived out their frazzled lives.
Usually, I don't like so much description so soon, but this description is dark and quite a visual stimulation.
First thing said:
"Yeah….No."
I guess the problem with finishing this book is that after the hook of the locked room mystery is solved, and it was clever, this loses its interest. The characters are stock and stereotype rolled up in Americanism.
Verdict: Pass (barely)
Sincerely,
Theodore Moracht
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