The Zig Zag Girl by Elly Griffiths


 

This was surprisingly enjoyable. I'm not 100% sure why I downloaded it (it was an audio book). It's possible I did it by accident. But then again it did say something about remains of a girl being found in three parts and posted to the detective, which is always enticing and going to get me intrigued.

So.... a girl is killed in a way that is reminiscent of a magic trick that just so happens to be the finale of the act of The Magic Mephisto, a famous magician who is currently in town. The magician also just so happens to be an old friend of the detective to whom the body parts are sent. They are old war buddies. But this, of course, is not a coincidence. It's all connected.

It's full of misdirection and intrigue and flashbacks and blood and gore and mystery.

The trouble is the misdirection is so obvious it's a bit like the magician going "don't look at my hand! whatever you do don't look at me stuffing this card up my sleeve!" It's so completely obvious who the murderer is going to turn out to be from the moment the character is introduced. There's some intrigue in whether or not anyone else is involved or not and mysteries from the past are also revealed but the main plot is really quite transparent.

That said, it kept me reading to the end and I was pleased to see it's the first in a series so I'll probably the sequels too.


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