Monday, April 20, 2015

A Blonde For Murder

ARDINI, the famous Magician, was more pleased than surprised when his hand-picked "volunteer" from the audience was replaced by 110 pounds of lovely glamour running across his stage, chased by a bulky figure waving a pistol. Before long his admiration changed to chagrin, and wonder . . . why did fate have to hand him dynamite wrapped up in a package so alluring that he was helpless to stay away? Before he knew it, Ardini was a suspect, spectator, and detective in a case that startled New York; a case involving jewelry thefts, mystery, magic . . . and murder. Magic, and a better-than-average power of deduction, were on Ardini's side, though, and soon he was giving some crime-busting lessons to the police. He even had time to take some lessons himself, and he learned a thing or two about romance from a beautiful, 110-pound instructor with plenty to teach.

A Blonde For Murder (Mystery)
By Walter B. Gibson
ISBN #978-1505428568
Price $11.67
230 Pages
Rating 5-Stars

A Master Magician Unravels A Murder Mystery.”

John Arden, better known as the Great Ardini is performing to a theater crowd when a young girl being chased by the police rushes on stage, then disappears in one of his famous magic acts. Now the police think Ardini is a suspect in league with the girl in the murder of a private detective working for an insurance company.

It’s up to the Great Ardini to find the girl, uncover the plot, and reveal the true murderer. He’s up again a spiritualist, another amateur magician, and gangsters, one of which may be the real killer. Ardini brings the case to an explosive end with a séance.

This novel was originally published by Vital Publications in 1948, but holds up well almost 70 years later. The author was a magician, and created several magician detectives, including Norgil the Magician, though this was the first Ardini story I had read. He is better known as the creator and author of The Shadow, Highly recommended.

Tom Johnson
Detective Mystery Stories


4 comments:

  1. How many of these did he write? I really enjoy the magician detective sub-genre, and have the two volumes of Norgil The Magician.

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  2. This was the only Ardini story I've come across. You would have to ask Anthony Tollin or Will Murray, they would know it there are more. I have all but a couple Norgil stories. Sanctum Books has been reprinting some of the missing Norgils that weren't in those two books, but there are still a couple that hasn't been reprinted.

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  3. I read this and enjoyed it, but it definitely seemed to belong to the pre-war era.

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  4. I don't know the publishing history, except this edition was taken from the 1948 printing. It could have appeared much earlier somewhere else.

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