Walter Satterthwait: Escapade (UK 2017)

From the Publisher:
Introducing 'The Pinkerton Pair' -- the cool and urbane Phil Beaumont, detective with the famous Pinkerton Agency, and Miss Jane Turner, an innocent English rose anxious to walk on the wild side of life.

It is the summer of 1921 and the guests are arriving at the stately country house (haunted, of course) of Lord Purleigh in Devon; among them a Viennese psychoanalyst, a mysterious medium there to conduct the obligatory seances which were all the rage, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle the creator of Sherlock Holmes and the great escapologist and showman Harry Houdini. Ostensibly hired to act as Houdini's bodyguard, following threats from a jealous fellow magician, Phil Beaumont finds himself casting a wise-cracking American eye over English high society whilst dealing with the energetic attentions of Lady Purleigh's daughter and having to solve the murder -- in a locked room -- of the wheelchair bound head of the family, the Earl of Axminster. With assistants such as Conan Doyle and Harry Houdini, the case should not be difficult, though of course it is, but the one who shows the most promise could be Jane Turner...

When published in the USA in 1995, the Los Angeles Times called Escapade: 'A classy and classic whodunnit... A seemingly effortless, beguiling style and a mesmerizing story smartly told.' .

This will be its first UK publication.

Walter Satterthwait: Escapade. Ostara Publishing, ISBN: 9791909619516 (October, 2017), 224 p., £12.99, eBook £5.94.

Walter Satterthwait: Escapade (USA 1999)

From the Publisher:
It's the summer of 1921. At a weekend party in an English country manor, the discovery of a dead body in a locked room pits the minds of a brilliant escape artist and a famous detective novelist against that of a fiendishly clever murderer. Will an American private eye beat two twentieth-century heroes to the punch and find the killer -- before he finds them?

American Phil Beaumont, hired to guard Harry Houdini from a rival magician's persistent death threats, finds his hands full at a stately country home, where the eclectic guest list includes the leading light of detective fiction, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. When their host is found murdered in a locked room, Houdini and Conan Doyle -- with some help from their American friend Beaumont -- match wits with the diabolical "Chin Soo," a master of disguise -- and murder.

"A convincing period piece with a droll modern sensuality... a book that pleases from the first page to the last." -- Wall Street Journal
"Thoroughly civilized, thoroughly pleasurable entertainment." -- Kirkus Reviews
"A stunning success. It is hard to praise this novel enough." -- Houston Chronicle

Walter Satterthwait: Escapade. Houdini can escape any trap. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle can solve any crime. Together, they’ve met their perfect match. St. Martin's Paperbacks, ISBN: 0312959206 (June, 1996), 353 p., $5.99.

Walter Satterthwait: Escapade (USA 1995)

From the Publisher:
In the summer of 1921, English society is fascinated by the spiritual world - perhaps no one more than the great mystery writer Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, one of thirteen eager guests at a weekend party and seance in a stately Devon manor house steeped in history and tradition. But, as Sir Arthur puts it, "Something very strange, and very sinister, is occurring here at Maplewhite." Whatever it is, warns his skeptical friend Harry Houdini, it is most certainly of this world, and no other.

Their suspicions are amply confirmed when their host, the Earl of Axminster, is found murdered - in a locked room.

Suspects and secrets abound, from the lovely Lady Purleigh and her nubile daughter, Cecily, to Dr. Erik Auerbach, the Viennese psychoanalyst, to Mme. Sosostris, the renowned European medium. Nobody is quite what they appear to be, and everyone has something to hide, in a mystery so puzzling that it baffles not only Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, but even the Great Houdini himself. Only the two greatest masterminds of artful deceit could solve a crime so ingeniously crafted and cunningly executed.

And only Walter Satterthwait could write Escapade, a brilliant comic novel that's also a traditional mystery, one that plays fair with the reader and yet still manages to break nearly all the rules.

Of Walter Satterthwait's last novel, The Hanged Man, Robin Winks wrote in the Boston Globe:
"Only a handful of writers has managed to get the old Raymond Chandler rhythm down right, so that the wisecracks move rather than slow down the story: Loren Estleman, Robert B. Parker, Elmore Leonard, and now Walter Satterthwait. It's nice to read someone who goes with the territory and can sing the words as well as play the notes."

WALTER SATTERTHWAIT's novels include A Flower in the Desert (1992), Wilde West (1991), At Ease with the Dead (1990), Miss Lizzie (1989), and Wall of Grass (1987), all from St. Martin's Press. He lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Jacket design by ALAN DINGMAN
Jacket art by JOSEPH DANIEL FIEDLER

Walter Satterthwait: Escapade. A Mystery. St. Martin's Press, ISBN: 0312130686 (July, 1995), 355 p., $22.95.