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A review by luftschlosseule
The Houdini Girl by Martyn Bedford
3.0
After the mysterious death of his lover Rosa, stage magician Red begins asking questions. He doesn't like the answers he's getting.
Narrated from the protagonist of his profession, you'd expect to learn something about magic. You're just used to it, to reading the so-called diary entries or narratives by stage magicians, but no, Red won't have any of this. He only reveals that no, his assistant the Lovely Kim didn't die for this trick, but describes how you would have seen it if you had been part of the audience.
I like that. Too many narrators are like "Well, we don't tell anyone" only to explain every single trick.
Red describes himself as mad with grief after Rosa's death, and since this book is narrated from his point of view, it feels muddled. ...or maybe that's just me, having had a few especially rough days, I don't know.
This book is made of two parts: Oxfort, where they met and lived together, and Amsterdam, where Red tries to discover where Rosa went two days of the week when she was supposed to be at work, and why she wanted to travel to the Netherlands as she died. Whom she wanted to meet there, if she knew the persons that might have killed her. And for a change of air he is in dire need of.
I like how it's told, the three-dimensional characters. But it didn't grip me as much as I had hope. Will be returning it to the open bookshelf and maybe looking for more by this author in the library, but that's it.
Narrated from the protagonist of his profession, you'd expect to learn something about magic. You're just used to it, to reading the so-called diary entries or narratives by stage magicians, but no, Red won't have any of this. He only reveals that no, his assistant the Lovely Kim didn't die for this trick, but describes how you would have seen it if you had been part of the audience.
I like that. Too many narrators are like "Well, we don't tell anyone" only to explain every single trick.
Red describes himself as mad with grief after Rosa's death, and since this book is narrated from his point of view, it feels muddled. ...or maybe that's just me, having had a few especially rough days, I don't know.
This book is made of two parts: Oxfort, where they met and lived together, and Amsterdam, where Red tries to discover where Rosa went two days of the week when she was supposed to be at work, and why she wanted to travel to the Netherlands as she died. Whom she wanted to meet there, if she knew the persons that might have killed her. And for a change of air he is in dire need of.
I like how it's told, the three-dimensional characters. But it didn't grip me as much as I had hope. Will be returning it to the open bookshelf and maybe looking for more by this author in the library, but that's it.