Overview

St. Paul, Minnesota. October 1, 1917. High above the city, a renowned local financier named Artemis Dodge lies facedown on the floor of his armored penthouse sanctuary, a single bullet hole in his head. Thirty stories up, in the city's tallest building, and not a shred of evidence or sign pointing to anyone having broken into the wealthy man's fortress. It is--to all appearances--an impossible crime. Enter Shadwell Rafferty: Irishman, St. Paul saloonkeeper, sometime detective, and old friend of the celebrated sleuth Sherlock Holmes. Summoned by Louis B. Hill--son of railroad magnate James J. Hill--to investigate, Rafferty descends into a world dominated by greedy tycoons and awash in political intrigue and wartime fearmongering. Suspects lurk in every corner of the city--including Dodge's beautiful young widow, his slippery assistant, and a shadowy anarchist--and Rafferty pursues them from the streets of Ramsey Hill and the rooms of the Ryan Hotel to the labyrinthine caves under the Schmidt brewery. Matching wits with his foes at the police department and his unsavory rival, the St. Paul detective Mordecai Jones, Rafferty knows that in order to bring a killer to justice he must first unravel the riddle of a single bullet fired in a locked room, three hundred feet above the streets of St. Paul. Set during a bitter streetcar strike and amid the clandestine activities of a ruthless commission charged with enforcing wartime patriotism, Larry Millett has created a classic and perfectly executed locked-room mystery in the great tradition of John Dickson Carr. From locked rooms and civil unrest, to murder and wartime paranoia, The Magic Bullet presents Rafferty's most challenging case, and its gripping conclusion--with a timely assist from Sherlock Holmes--finds both Rafferty and Millett at the top of their games.

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Reviews

[The Magic Bullet] brings back the World War I look and feel of old St. Paul, along with an expert overview of the tensions of the time. -- Booklist John Dickson Carr fans will appreciate this intelligent homage to the master of the locked-room mystery. -- Publishers Weekly (starred review)

Author Information

Larry Millett was a reporter and critic for the St. Paul Pioneer Press for thirty years. He is the author of more than a dozen books, including a mystery series featuring Sherlock Holmes in Minnesota. Steve Hendrickson has been a professional actor for over thirty years. A graduate of Yale School of Drama, he has appeared in theaters across the country. His audio projects include Archibald Finch and the Lost Witches and The Year the Yankees Lost the Pennant, among others.

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