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TRICK OF THE MIND
by Cassandra Chan
St Martin's Minotaur, May 2008
352 pages
$24.95
ISBN: 0312369395


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

Cassandra Chan does not waste any time with the opening chapters of the third book of her series featuring socialite Phillip Bethancourt and his best friend, Detective Sergeant Jack Gibbons from New Scotland Yard. The detective is in the hospital after being shot twice in the stomach. Although he is expected to make a full recovery, he cannot remember anything about the day of the shooting for the life of him. He knows he went to work, but that is all. The main lead he has was that he was working on a case involving some stolen jewelry, but he does not know how it could have led to his being shot. It will be up to his colleagues at Scotland Yard as well as his good friend, Phillip Bethancourt to figure it all out. The socialite has been helpful to the force before, and it is the least that he can do for his friend.

Overall, Cassandra Chan does provide a good story. The characters are engaging and the police work is solid. Kirkus describes her books as "a lighthearted look at murder among the upper classes" and so they are.. Her work reminds me of the sort of Golden Age mystery I associate with Dorothy L. Sayers and similar writers who use an upper-class detective as hero. TRICK OF THE MIND is not set in the 1930s but in the present. Nevertheless the characters seem stuck in the past even if they use the Internet and carry Blackberries. I think the author would have been better advised to place her story during the 1930s or 1940s than the twenty-first century.

The novel does entertain, despite my reservations. It is just my opinion that the characters would have been better served had the story taken place several decades before. When it comes to the present, the story is just a bit too old-fashioned.

Reviewed by Angel L. Soto, September 2008

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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


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