Magic and Crime.

I always take a book with me for the daily commute between home and work. My current choice is "The Bullet Trick" by Louise Welsh and I'm absolutely enthralled by it. Not only is it extremely well written but it features 3 of my favourite cities (Glasgow, London and Berlin). The central character and narrator is a stage magician who gets caught up in crime while plying his trade in seedy nightclubs.

Conjurors have always been a reliable staple in detective fiction. Two favourites from TV are the current "Jonathan Creek" and, from America, "Blacke's Magic". The latter reminds me of the days when my son Paul was a toddler. STV had bought a batch of American detective series including "Riptide", "Tucker's Witch" and "Partners in Crime" (with Loni Anderson and Lynda Carter) and would show them in the middle of the afternoon. "Blacke's Magic" was pretty much a precursor of Jonathan Creek and often featured "impossible" crimes such as locked room mysteries. I would have thought that, with established stars like Hal Linden and Harry Morgan who had proved their comedic talents in "Barney Miller" ( a police procedural sit-com ?) and "M.A.S.H." respectively, that this would have been a banker for TV gold. Sadly, it only ran for 12 episodes but I have fond memories of the show that coincide with changing nappies and preparing suitably mushy food.

Around the same time I discovered the delights of Clayton Rawson and his illusionist detective "The Great Merlini" through occasional short stories in old editions of "Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine". Naturally, I was delighted when an American publisher reprinted the 4 Merlini novels. A working stage magician as well as a crime writer Rawson is often credited with coining the phrase : "Crime doesn't pay. . .. enough."

They say that stage magic is overdue for a resurgence. The in-your-face rudeness of David Blaine and the party spoiling tactics of the "Masked Magician" in the TV specials revealing magic's greatest secrets may put that on hold for quite some time. I still hope that there will always be a place for the conjuror in the detective story.