Tempest Raj would do anything for her family. She loves her father and adores her grandparents, especially since her mother went missing years ago. So when her grandfather is accused of murder, she has to step up and help investigate.
Tempest works with her father for their Secret Staircase Construction company, helping to install secret rooms and hidden passageways and a little bit of magic into the everyday lives of their clients. Their latest client is Lavinia, who is making over her home after kicking out her cheating husband, horror mystery writer Corbin Colt. She has taken back all the spaces that he claimed to write and set up an amazing space for her and her book club to enjoy.
And just to be sure that all of Colt’s bad energy is removed, she decides to hold a séance in her newly decorated book club space. She hires Tempest’s friend Sanjay to run the séance, so Tempest is invited to be there also. Since Sanjay is an illusionist, like Tampest, he doesn’t really enjoy doing séances, but he knows that he can create an atmosphere that will feel spooky and allow Lavinia to move on from her marriage. Her book club is also coming, as well as her mother and Tempest’s Grandfather Ash.
But in the middle of the ceremony, they are interrupted by a body landing on the table in front of everyone. It’s Colt himself, with a knife sticking up. Ash quickly comes under suspicion, as he’s the only one with blood on him from when he checked on the man to see if there was anything that could be done to save him. But the detective in charge focuses on Ash even more when he finds out that Colt had a restraining order against Ash.
Tempest had helped Sanjay set up the room for the séance, so she knows that there had been no body hidden anywhere beforehand. The room had been closed, and everyone at the table had been holding hands when the dead man appeared. And then she finds out that he had been on his new girlfriend’s livestream just minutes before the séance, and at that point he had been almost an hour away. Tempest counts four impossible things about this crime, but she’s going to have to figure them all out to make sure that her grandfather doesn’t go to prison for Colt’s murder.
The Raven Thief is the second in bestselling author Gigi Pandian’s Secret Staircase Mystery series, and these books are packed with information. There is the secrets of magicians, the creativity of the construction company, the family secrets, the fandom of classic mystery novels, and a hint of something supernatural, as Colt’s books pulls information from the Occult. And watching Tempest slowly unravel all the impossibilities of the locked-room mystery and slowly figure out just how a man could have fallen from the ceiling and died in front of them while being several miles away.
I listened to the audio book for this one, and I think that narrator Soneela Nankani is nailing Tempest’s voice. This is a complex, layered mystery with a lot of characters, but I had very little trouble keeping up with them all, despite listening to the book on audio. Nankani managed the cast of characters with intelligence and what felt to me like ease.
I could not stop listening to The Raven Thief. Tempest is a compelling character, and the mystery here is layered with questions and secrets that go deeper than just one man’s murder. There are moments of humor and moments of insight, and it all mixes together as seamlessly as Grandfather Ash’s Cardamom Chocolate Chip Scones and his Blackberry Jam (the recipes are included at the end). The Secret Staircase Mysteries are smart mysteries with likable characters and so much imagination. They’re traditional mysteries and they’re so much more, and I would recommend this series to anyone looking for a modern twist on the popular mysteries of writers like Agatha Christie, Mary Roberts Rinehart, and John Dickson Carr. In short, these books have a lot to love.
A copy of the audio book for The Raven Thief was provided by Macmillan Audio through NetGalley, with many thanks.
