As If By Magic

Detective Inspector Bill Rackham is having a quiet beer with his friend Jack Haldean when he mentions a curious case to Haldean.  A man had been caught red-handed running out of a house by police.  He claimed to have seen a murder in the kitchen.  When the police investigated, there was no body.  The man was not charged and was hospitalised.  When Rackham mentions the name, Haldean is sure that he knows the man.

The man, George Lassiter has an interesting story to tell Haldean.  He was home in South Africa when he saw an ad in a newspaper suggesting that he travel to London to pick up a legacy.  However, when he arrives in London the solicitor informs him that someone has already made off with it, having apparently presented the necessary credentials.  Haldean decides to help Lassiter find out who had claimed the legacy.

Meanwhile, Rackham is busy dealing with the mystery of a missing man.  When he speaks to the man’s wife, her description of the missing man makes Rackham sure that the missing man is in the morgue.

Lassiter’s mystery deepens when he discovers in a street guide that a person having the same name as him lives in the house where he claims he saw a murder.  It turns out that the house is home to his grandfather!  While they are getting to know each other, Rackham shows up with the woman whose husband is missing.  She has identified the body and now wants to be with her friend who was married to Lassiter’s cousin.

Haldean is shocked when Rackham tells him that the now identified dead man had kept newspaper cuttings of murders of women.  This seems to also identify him as their killer of those women.  However, some time later another woman is murdered.  Is there another killer at large or were they mistaken about the dead man?

Author Dolores Gordon-Smith has plenty of twists to this plot before the reader learns who is behind the killings and other troubles that the Lassiter family is experiencing.  Another good, quick read.