title: The Conjurer: A Martha Beale Mystery
author:  Cordelia Frances Biddle 
description: Sordid secrets of the rich and powerful drive the plot of Biddle's unconvincing Philadelphia historical, the first of a new series. One morning in 1842, Main Line financier Lemuel Beale fails to return from a routine hunting trip; his capable but coddled daughter, Martha, and Thomas Kelman, assistant to the mayor of Philadelphia, set out to track him down. At the same time, a brutal serial killer of young prostitutes is stalking the inner-city slums, and traveling mesmerist Eusapio Paladino is chilling aristocratic audiences with performances in which the dead appear to be calling out through his trances. These disparate yet interrelated story threads combine in an intricately orchestrated narrative that implicates the Brahmin class and the corruption that comes with their absolute power. Biddle wonderfully evokes the color and culture of the time, but her overstocked tale ends hastily and unbelievably. Biddle is the coauthor with her husband, Steve Zettel, of <i>Death on the Diagonal</i> and other Nero Blanc crossword puzzle mysteries. <i>(Feb.)</i> <br />Copyright  Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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  ## “Thank you for a lovely evening.”
  
  
  
  
  
  She stood uncertainly. “Good night, Dr. Trescombe.”
  
  
  
  
  
  He came to stand very close to her. “Do you know my first name, Cordelia?” he
  asked.
  
  
  
  
  
  “Oh, yes, of course, Charles.”
  
  
  
  
  
  “But of course you couldn’t call me that, could you?” His face was grave but
  he sounded amused.
  
  
  
  
  
  “No, I couldn’t. It wouldn’t do at all.”
  
  
  
  
  
  He sighed. “Life is never going to be the same again,” he observed, and when
  she gave him a puzzled look, he bent and kissed her swiftly. “Good night,
  Cordelia.”
  
  
  
  
  
  She puzzled again over that remark while she got ready for bed. Was he
  referring to leaving Vienna? Or was he going to marry one of the beautiful
  women she had seen that night? She shed a few tears at the hopelessness of the
  whole thing and fell into a troubled sleep.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Romance readers around the world were sad to note the passing of Betty Neels
  in June 2001. Her career spanned thirty years, and she continued to write into
  her ninetieth