Do you watch a magic show enchanted by the impossible, or are you judiciously trying to figure out how the magician does it – trap doors, hidden wires, false bottoms?  Greer Macallister reveals a few secrets in The Magician’s Lie as the Amazing Arden tells her story.  A mystery and a murder – did she chop her husband in half in a purposely failed trick, or is she a victim of a relentless and cruel stalker?

I once had the opportunity to interview a real magician who performed the appropriate card tricks and a little mind reading.  All deception and misdirection, he told me.  Of course, if you want to believe in magic, you will, but if you are certain that sawing a woman in half on stage could never happen, you will find the flaw in the act.

In The Magician’s Tale, Macallister sandwiches her thrills with too much angst and rambling description in between, as the magician tells her sad background to her captor, a wounded policeman.  Like a good magician, Macallister misdirects the action but Arden’s long-winded story has too many distractions.  The real action happens at the beginning and at the ending grand finale, with the mystery solved and happy ending for all – except the dead body, of course.