Freelance scribe Ross Harte is working on an essay about the sad 
state of the modern mystery novel when a scream comes from the hallway:
 “There is death in that room!” Harte finds a trio of conjurers trying 
to get into the apartment of his neighbor, the mysterious Dr. Cesare 
Sabbat, famed occultist and, for the past few minutes, a corpse.They 
break down the door to find Sabbat lying in a pentagram, face twisted
 from the agonies of strangulation, but with no bruises on his neck.
 All the doors were locked, and the windows drop straight down to the
 river below. Only an escape artist could get out of that room, and 
Sabbat knew quite a few. To make sense of this misdirected muddle,
 the police bring in the Great Merlini, an illusionist whose specialty 
is making mysteries disappear
*** E-book in epub format ***