Pick a card, any card.
No? You don’t care for magic tricks? Forgive me. See that poster, framed on the far wall: “The Sensational Mister Spector.” Some visitors remember me from those days, when I trod the boards performing wonders to packed houses in the music halls of London. But now I lead a quieter life—for the most part.
My home is in Putney, a little spot called Jubilee Court. The house is old, and rather ramshackle—but then, so am I. Its rooms are cluttered with artefacts both strange and macabre: occult tomes, Barnumesque humbugs, the assorted trappings and gimmicks of the professional illusionist. My study overflows with papers, and the walls are lined with strange adornments: paintings, sketches, ornamental masks. The air is musty with cigarillo smoke, just the way I like it. My needs are tended to by a lone housemaid, Clotilde, whose presence is a comfort, though she never utters a word.
So: my day. Sleep is a vice, and best avoided. I work at night. Really, my day begins in the evening. I venture out to a local hostelry, The Black Pig, and settle in my habitual armchair beside the fireplace, just below the moth-eaten deer’s head. The landlord and barmaid know me well; I am as much a fixture there as the beer taps. They even keep a ready stock of my preferred tipple—absinthe—just for me. I’ve been known to sit in contemplation for hours, perhaps with a deck of cards in front of me, or a silver coin which I roll idly over my knuckles.
And sometimes people come to find me. They seek me out from all over London; all over England; even—I flatter myself—the world. They bring me problems. Puzzles. Strange scenarios which defy explanation. In a word: mysteries. Usually, there is a murder. Often, said murder seems physically impossible, as though committed by a demon or phantom or vengeful ghost. Oftentimes, the conventional imaginations of Scotland Yard are thwarted, and so they turn to me. My experience in the worlds of theatre and magic has left me with a unique perspective on such matters. I know how all the tricks are done.
My most frequent drinking companion—in some ways, my “partner in crime”—is Inspector George Flint. When we first met, he was rather afraid of me, I think. But now we are firm friends. He has consulted me many times over the years. There was the strange murder of the psychiatrist (Death and the Conjuror), for instance, or the unpleasant business at the Pomegranate Theatre—imagine, a corpse produced from thin air in the middle of a magic show! (The Murder Wheel) And then there was that string of gruesome deaths out at Marchbanks, to say nothing of the escaped lunatic (Cabaret Macabre). Most recently, I visited an old house on an island called “Devil’s Neck.” There I participated in a séance before solving several bizarre and terrible locked-room murders, and laying to rest a singular ghost…
But tell me: what brings you here? Have you a mystery in need of a solution? Pull up a chair; it’s getting dark outside.
My day is just beginning.
The House at Devil’s Neck – A Joseph Spector Mystery, Book 4
Genre: Lock-Room Mystery
Release: July 2025
Format: Print, Digital
Purchase Link
In this latest locked room mystery from the author of Cabaret Macabre, amateur sleuth Joseph Spector pits his knowledge of stage magic against the seemingly supernatural when a seance at an isolated old hospital turns deadly.
An apparent suicide in a London townhouse uncannily mirrors a similar incident from twenty-five years ago, prompting Scotland Yard’s George Flint to delve deep into the past in search of the solution to a long-forgotten mystery.
Meanwhile, Joseph Spector travels with a coach party through the rainy English countryside to visit an allegedly haunted house on a lonely island called Devil’s Neck. The house, first built by a notorious alchemist and occultist, was later used as a field hospital in the First World War before falling into disrepair. The visitors hold a seance to conjure the spirit of a long-dead soldier. But when a storm floods the narrow causeway connecting Devil’s Neck to the mainland, they find themselves stranded in the haunted house. Before long, the guests begin to die one by one, and it seems that the only possible culprit is the phantom soldier.
Flint’s and Spector’s investigations are in fact closely linked, but it is only when the duo are reunited at the storm-lashed Devil’s Neck that the truth is finally revealed. Tom Mead once again creates a brilliant homage to John Dickson Carr and the Golden Age of mysteries with this intricately plotted puzzle.
Meet the author
Tom Mead is an author, translator, and aficionado of Golden Age crime fiction. He is the creator of the Joseph Spector locked room mystery series, which has been translated into ten languages (and counting), and is soon to be adapted for the screen.