Wonderfully well plotted and interesting mystery set in the world of stage magicians in '50s England. The setting is based on a true story: During WWII, there was a special British Army unit of stage magicians called the Magic Men who were supposed to use sleight-of-hand and illusions to fool the Germans into leaving the English coastline alone. In the book, they were led by a very beautiful woman who was involved with two of them. She died tragically aboard a burning boat, and her death haunts one of the men, who has become a police detective in the resort town of Brighton. All of the Magic Men are living civilian lives in the post war period but then suddenly people connected with them are murdered in ways that evoke classic magic tricks, the first being "the Zig-Zag Girl," a trick in which a woman seems to be sawed into three. I did guess the murderer but it was very well done.