A mystery that understands how easily a performance can become a crime—and how dangerous it is to confuse the two.
A murder staged as an illusion, a haunted theater, and a woman trying to claim her own magic collide in Setton’s novel.
The story is set against Atlantic City’s decaying glamour. Lucy Moon, a magician born into one of America’s most famous magic families, is preparing for a career-defining performance when her co-star, Van, vanishes. Minutes later, the illusion meant to cap the night (the sawing in half of a woman) becomes real in the worst possible way: Van’s body is discovered inside the very box used onstage, transforming a classic magic trick into a crime scene. From that moment, the story moves between the investigation and its aftermath, following Lucy as she navigates grief, shock, and suspicion. The venue itself is central to the plot; the Black Widow Theatre is a historic space layered with wartime memory, corruption, and whispered legends, where performances never quite end and the past refuses to stay buried. (“Despite having only three hundred and thirty-five red-velvet seats, the Widow is grand. Chandeliers drip diamond-lights from an intricately carved sky filled with Nordic gods.”) As the police begin their work, Lucy and her closest ally, Stormie, start their own search for answers, driven by loyalty and the conviction that Van’s death will be misunderstood if left solely to official channels. The narrative steadily expands its circle of suspects and motives. Magicians, casino workers, veterans, journalists, and shadowy figures from Atlantic City’s nightlife drift in and out of focus. Lucy’s background complicates everything—her father’s fame, her aunt’s witchcraft, and her own uneasy relationship with confinement and performance all color the investigation. The plot unfolds with the precision of a stage act built around timing, misdirection, and withheld information without relying on cheap twists or shocks for momentum.
The book’s strongest element lies in how the author uses magic as metaphor. Illusion is not simply entertainment but a system of power—it’s about who controls the story, who disappears, and whose body is placed at risk. Lucy’s fear of the sawing box is symbolic of a long tradition in which women are locked inside spaces designed by men, expected to emerge unharmed and smiling. As she reflects early on, “But lock me in the box and saw me in half, and I’ll scream bloody murder.” That line echoes throughout the story, reframing the hoary illusion as an act of enforced silence. Rather than treating the supernatural as spectacle, Setton uses hauntings to explore unresolved ideas of violence and inherited pain. Ghosts and intuitions function less as plot devices than as manifestations of memory, insisting that what happened before still matters. The city itself becomes complicit, its casinos and boardwalks masking exploitation beneath neon and nostalgia. Stylistically, the prose is confident and atmospheric, grounded in tactile detail and sharp dialogue. The pacing balances urgency with emotional weight, allowing grief and anger to surface without slowing the narrative drive. Observations about gender, performance, and risk are woven into the story rather than announced, giving the book its quiet bite.
A mystery that understands how easily a performance can become a crime—and how dangerous it is to confuse the two.Pub Date: March 2, 2026
ISBN: 9781917788038
Page Count: 385
Publisher: Black Spring Crime
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2026
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Enough clues, red herrings, and false endings to make readers feel that the Orient Express has put out to sea.
A luxury liner bound for New York in 1924 becomes the scene of a twisty golden age pastiche.
When an unnamed third-class passenger discovers the body of an elderly man at the bottom of an exterior flight of stairs aboard the Endeavour, Capt. McCrory insists it must be an accident. But James Temple, a Scotland Yard detective who just happens to be aboard, says that no one would have ventured to the outdoor steps in the rain without a coat, so the death should be treated as suspicious. Unable to stop Temple from investigating, McCrory assigns ship’s officer Timothy Birch to accompany him, and Birch promptly becomes the world’s most unwilling Dr. Watson, constantly battling Temple over theories and procedures. Anxious that they have only four days to find a potential killer before the ship docks and lets its 2,000 passengers roam free in New York, he’s especially infuriated at the leisurely pace marked by Temple’s bromide, “Facts before witnesses.” There’s reason to sympathize with Temple, because the suspects in first and second class (the only classes that matter in this ultra-class-conscious world) are cardboard cutouts—the successful banker, his trophy wife, the aspiring artists, the gallery owner—who are much less interesting than the secrets they’re hiding. In his most anachronistic development, author Hindle shows Birch, unlike the imperturbable sidekicks he echoes, sunk in grief over his vanished daughter, Amelia, and his estranged wife, Kate, who left him after Amelia disappeared during one of his ocean voyages. He’d do anything to get his daughter back, he tells Temple, and his determination leads to the biggest surprise of all.
Enough clues, red herrings, and false endings to make readers feel that the Orient Express has put out to sea.Pub Date: Sept. 29, 2026
ISBN: 9798217185740
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: July 20, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2026
Recommended reading for every paranoid suburbanite who’s considering a move to the city, or to the Arctic wilds.
Character assassination reigns supreme, if not uncontested, in a Long Island suburb.
April Masterson loves her husband, corporate attorney Elliott; their 7-year-old, Bobby; and her YouTube channel, “April’s Sweet Secrets.” What she doesn’t love is whoever’s texting her warnings about how Bobby isn’t really in their backyard while she’s busy filming her videos or withering critiques of her baking show or veiled accusations about her past and threats about her present. Her best friend, former prosecutor Julie Bressler, may be bossy and opinionated, but surely she’d never turn on April this way. Who else might know enough to send April goodies like a picture of her kissing Mark Tanner, Bobby’s soccer coach? Though April struggles to get Elliot to take her ordeal seriously, even when she shows up at his office for a lunch date, he’s protected by his receptionist, Brianna Anderson, whose attachment to her boss goes far beyond loyalty. Then Julie turns on her; Maria Cooper, her friendly new next-door neighbor, turns on her; and in the most mind-boggling scene, Doris Kirkland, April’s mother, whose dementia has brought her to a nursing home, turns on her. McFadden releases an escalating series of toxins so deftly into the suburban atmosphere that it’s practically an anticlimax when someone gets killed and April instantly becomes the prime suspect. But that’s only a setup for the tale’s boldest move: switching its narrator from April to a fair-weather friend who frames the whole nightmare in dramatically different terms. As a special gift to her savviest fans, the author throws in an even more jolting epilogue that’s as hard to forget as it is to believe.
Recommended reading for every paranoid suburbanite who’s considering a move to the city, or to the Arctic wilds.Pub Date: March 3, 2026
ISBN: 9781464249600
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: Dec. 6, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2026
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
