A Blake Harte Mystery, Book 9 - Atmosphere

If you love impossible mysteries, then you will absolutely enjoy the Blake Harte mystery series by Robert Innes.  From the very first book, I have gobbled up each and every mystery he has written, awed by Innes' ability to create crimes that seem ... well ... impossible!  From cars disappearing in tunnels to murders in locked rooms to a person drowning in an elevator to a dead person coming back to life.  Yet, Innes crafts these stories so well, and his detective, Blake Harte, has the perfect analytical mind to figure out exactly how each and every crime is committed.  In this ninth book, we get not a murder, but a magician's act whose assistant disappears in front of a live audience - literally!

Atmosphere is the ninth book in the series, and just when I think Innes could not possibly have any more ingenious ideas, he surprises me with another.  Harte and his partner, Harrison Baxter, are still dealing with the fall-out of their landlady's son trying to break up their relationship and Harte's ongoing nightmares about an incident that occurred when he was a child.  Harte is seeing a therapist, but he's not sure if talking about it will really help.  He's more anxious about his upcoming vacation to Manchester where he will be celebrating his best friend's thirtieth birthday party.  Everything in Harmschapel seems to be calm, so all he has to do is make it through the next week or so, and he'll be able to take a break from everything.  But, as always, fate has other plans...

The self-proclaimed great magician, Sebastian Klein, has come to Harmschapel to put on his magic show, along with his young daughter/assistant, Amelia, and his stagehand, Benjamin.  Harte is not exactly a huge fan of magicians, as his analytical mind can usually see through the tricks.  And when Klein asks Harte to watch what he claims is his greatest trick and see if he can figure it out, Harte can't resist.  Klein, of course, is none-too-thrilled when Harte is able to explain exactly how he makes his daughter disappear and then reappear in a large cabinet.  Harte promises to keep it quiet and not spoil the "magic" of it all for the people of Harmschapel who come to see the show.  The only problem is - when Klein perform the trick for the audience, something goes wrong and Amelia disappears for real!  But how is that possible, when Klein has installed a mirror above the stage so that the audience can see all angles of the cabinet to prove that no one enters or exits the cabinet during the trick.  So, if Amelia entered the cabinet but did not exit it, then where did she go?

It looks like another job for the master of solving impossible crimes!  Harte is back in his element trying to figure out exactly what happened to Amelia.  As he begins to look into the disappearance, he quickly discovers that nothing is what it seems with the magician and his crew.  Benjamin, the stage hand, seems quite disgruntled, so much so, that Klein fires him - but not before Benjamin threatens to expose the magician!  And Amelia may not be the shy little beauty that everyone saw on stage, for Harte soon discovers that she was seen at a strip club - and she was doing more than just taking off her clothes!  And what about Benjamin's claim that Klein was showing more than just fatherly love for his daughter?  And just how in the world does a local councilman figure into all of this?  Well, that's up to Harte to figure out.

Meanwhile, Harrison has his own little mystery to solve.  It seems Tom, the landlady's son, claims to be backing off of interest in Harrison and has promised to leave Harte alone; however, his mysterious phone calls, his intense secrecy about them, and his strange behavior, both towards his own mother and towards Harrison, gives Harte's partner reason to worry.  What is Tom up to?  And who is the mysterious "F" who keeps calling Tom?  Is it a new boyfriend, or is something much more sinister going on?

Innes provides a much darker mystery with this one, a mystery that delves into the darker side of humanity and the truly evil things people do.  At the same time, he continues building towards something big with the continuing subplot of Tom and his mysterious phone calls.  The next book is simply titled Harte, so I'm expecting all of the subplots to come to a conclusion with the 10th book, and we'll see just how Harte handles everything when it all comes to a head.

RATING:  10 cups of Horlick out of 10 for a mystery that is truly a mystery - no excessive foul language, no explicit or gratuitous sex, and no unnecessary hijinks - just great characterization, exceptional plotting, and fantastic mysteries!