So, our brains tell us magic isn’t real. That whenever a magician makes a coin disappear and reappear or reads our minds, we know there’s some trick, some form of misdirection he’s using to make us believe something otherworldly is occurring. We know it’s not real, but we believe it anyway. Enter Angel Killer, by real-life magician Andrew Mayne.
FBI agent Jessica Blackwood believes she left her family and past as a rising-star magician behind after a life-threatening accident during a routine performance. And she’s right, until the FBI encounters a killer whose crime scenes absolutely baffle reality. A woman dead for two years is found half-way out of the grave, as if she’d been brought back to life. A woman with feathers in her arms is found in the middle of Times Square, as if she’d fallen from Heaven. Jessica must use her magician background and knowledge of the art of misdirection to figure out what’s really happening, to see beyond what the killer wants people to see.
Angel Killer was a self-published ebook bestseller, and I can totally see why. The author melds his own experience as a magician with his family’s knowledge of FBI proceedings (both his father and brother are agents) to create a character who knows how to see what’s going on besides what’s in front of her eyes, and uses that knowledge to explain the unbelievable. I was completely absorbed by Jessica’s unique thought processes, but the novel also pays homage to the mundane but vital inner workings of the FBI, an insight I also enjoyed reading about. While reading, you’ll constantly be asking yourself, “how did he do that?!” Sometimes you get answers, sometimes you don’t, but as with any magical trick, it’s the uncertainty and wonder that pull you in. Definitely make sure to grab it from Edelweiss, and as an added bonus, you might just learn some of the carefully guarded secrets from the captivating world of magicians.
-Amanda