"In this nail-biting transatlantic mystery, threat of mass violence looms over Elizabeth II's coronation--can Detective Inspector Edgar Stephens and the magician Max Mephisto crack the case and save the crown?"--

"Brighton, 1950. The body of a girl is found cut into three pieces. Detective Inspector Edgar Stephens is convinced the killer is mimicking a famous magic trick--the Zig Zag Girl. The inventor of the trick, Max Mephisto, is an old war friend of Edgar's. They served together in a shadowy unit called the Magic Men, a special ops troop that used stage tricks to confound the enemy. Max is on the traveling show circuit, touring seaside towns with ventriloquists,...

"Newly minted PI Emma Holmes and her partner Sam Collins are just settling into their business when they're chosen for a high-profile case: retired music-hall star Verity Malone hires them to find out who poisoned her husband, a theater impresario. Verity herself has been accused of the crime. The only hitch--the Brighton police are already on the case, putting Emma in direct competition with her husband, police superintendent Edgar Stephens. Soon...

Ex-Chief Constable Bob Watts is hoping to ease gently into his new role as Brighton's first Police Commissioner but is hit with a shocking scandal involving the director of the Royal Pavilion. In the subsequent investigation, Detective Inspector Sarah Gilchrist and Detective Sergeant Bellamy Heap are bemused by the discovery of looted antiquities from Cambodia's Angkor Watt in the tunnels beneath the Pavilion, but the further discovery of a corpse...