Would you ever climb into that box magician's have and then let them saw you in half? It's just an illusion, right? Or is it? This week we're heading to New Jersey for a little magic on Halloween in Zig Zag Girl. A person could really get sawed in half in one of those boxes, you're thinking. fuggedaboutit already. This week's podcast is all about a haunted magic show.

Synopsis

Zigzag Girl, by Ruth Knafo Setton, is a twisty contemporary mystery with a touch of magic, set in Atlantic City and the eerie New Jersey Pine Barrens. Lucy Moon, a brilliant young magician with a mysterious past, works in the town’s theatre, staging performances of enchantment and conjure. But one night, during the ‘Sawing a Woman in Half’ trick, Lucy discovers her friend’s body in the box, dead. As Lucy digs deeper, she uncovers a trail of murders and suspects. With the help of a fierce group of female magicians and mystics, she must expose the truth before she becomes the final act.

Book Links: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | BookShop.org | Goodreads | The Black Spring Press Group

Music Credits:

Open Up

https://uppbeat.io/t/euchmad/open-up

License code: XLFZAKI2QXIMI57C

Books to the Ceiling is part of the Teresa Trent Author Blog

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This week we are headed to the world of art collecting. Matisse, Monet, and a little art forgery that makes you wonder what is authentic and what isn't? Let's find out more in Artist, Lover, Forger, Thief by Sheila Sharpe.

Artist, Lover, Forger, Thief is a riveting, wildly entertaining, complex, and adrenaline-fueled art crime novel that is as intriguing as it is satisfying. Nick McCoy wants out of the art forgery business but not until he exacts revenge on the man who murdered his family years ago. Kate O’Dade, McCoy’s former therapist, comes to him for help after mysteriously receiving a painting of Matisse’s Open Window from an unknown benefactor. This seemingly innocent meeting to determine its authenticity sets off a chain of events that will take McCoy, O’Dade, Cromwell and his new team of investigators from San Diego to England, and from art forgery to murder.

Rarely do you find such complex characters, intricate plot, compelling subject, and cunning psychological jousting woven throughout such a memorable story like Sharpe does in Artist, Lover, Forger, Thief.

Book Links: Amazon | Kindle | Barnes & Noble | BookShop.org | Goodreads | BookBub

Music Credits:

Blank Light

https://uppbeat.io/t/adi-goldstein/blank-light

License code: 5AWUQ4EMO09CRT06

This week we're heading to Winchester, Virginia to do a little historical research while we hang out with the dead detective, Oliver Tucker. Get ready for helpful spirits, child psychics, and a man in love with an angel. All good stuff in Dying With a Secret by TJ O'Connor.

Oliver “Tuck” Tucker, the dead detective, is back—not just for another case, but from the dead—or vice versa. It all starts when a Federal Agent is killed by a mysterious force in front of dozens of witnesses—including Angel, his historian wife, and Tuck. Among the many suspects is a dark, clandestine Federal agency responsible for advanced research and weaponry, a university doctoral candidate who won’t stay dead, and the leader of a secret southern society bent on rekindling the Civil War. With the aid of a ten-year-old psychic and the spirit of Tuck’s Civil War grandmother—Sally Elizabeth Mosby—Tuck has to stay one step ahead of the Feds who are hellbent on capturing him—alive? But through all this, what’s a two-hundred-year-old lost fortune in gold got to do with dead agents, secret death rays, and rogue policemen?

Genre: Paranormal Mystery, PI Cozy Mystery Published by: Level Best Books Publication Date: December 9, 2025 Number of Pages: 324 ISBN: 979-8898201111 (pbk) Series: The Dead Detective Casefiles, Book 4 Book Links: Amazon | Kindle | Barnes & Noble | BookShop.org | Goodreads | BookBub

Music Credits

Soft Landing

https://uppbeat.io/t/peter-lainson/soft-landing

License code: EV45YPBKFJWCTQBF

Internal Investigation

https://uppbeat.io/t/benjamin-botkin/internal-investigation

License code: T2MMNSQ0DSCNR0II

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