A hypnotist escapes from a London asylum. She leaves one word on the wall of her cell, written in blood: MAGISTER. Then the killing starts.

Superintendent William Melville of Special Branch is not a man who asks for help. But the murders are real, the threat is escalating, and the man whose name was scrawled in that cell is not a detective, a soldier, or a spy.

He’s a stage magician.

Michael Magister and his partner Phoebe Le Breton are the most celebrated illusionists in Victorian London — masters of misdirection, sleight of hand, and making audiences believe the impossible. Now Melville needs those exact skills to catch a killer who’s already put Michael on the death list.

Colin Edmonds builds something genuinely distinctive here: a murder mystery where the detective’s greatest asset is knowing how deception works. Magister doesn’t solve crimes despite being a magician. He solves them because of it. The Victorian Music Hall setting is rendered with genuine affection, and the conspiracy behind MAGISTER reaches further than either Magister or Melville is prepared for. Phoebe Le Breton is far more than a glamorous assistant.

The first novel in the award-winning Steam, Smoke & Mirrors series.

Start here. The secrets in Professor Artemus More’s journals will keep pulling you through the entire series.

A hypnotist escapes from a London asylum. She leaves one word on the wall of her cell, written in blood: MAGISTER. Then the killing starts.

Superintendent William Melville of Special Branch is not a man who asks for help. But the murders are real, the threat is escalating, and the man whose name was scrawled in that cell is not a detective, a soldier, or a spy.

He’s a stage magician.

Michael Magister and his partner Phoebe Le Breton are the most celebrated illusionists in Victorian London — masters of misdirection, sleight of hand, and making audiences believe the impossible. Now Melville needs those exact skills to catch a killer who’s already put Michael on the death list.

Colin Edmonds builds something genuinely distinctive here: a murder mystery where the detective’s greatest asset is knowing how deception works. Magister doesn’t solve crimes despite being a magician. He solves them because of it. The Victorian Music Hall setting is rendered with genuine affection, and the conspiracy behind MAGISTER reaches further than either Magister or Melville is prepared for. Phoebe Le Breton is far more than a glamorous assistant.

The first novel in the award-winning Steam, Smoke & Mirrors series.

Start here. The secrets in Professor Artemus More’s journals will keep pulling you through the entire series.