The Headless Lady

The Great Merlini #3

by Clayton Rawson

When Major Hannum, the owner of the circus, is killed in a suspicious car accident, Merlini the magician decides to investigate

Genres: Mystery

224 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1940

About the author

Aka Stuart Towne.

Clayton Rawson (1906 - 1971) was an American mystery writer, editor, and amateur magician. His four novels frequently invoke his great knowledge of stage magic and feature as their fictional detective The Great Merlini, a professional magician who runs a shop selling magic supplies. He also wrote four short stories in 1940 about a stage magician named Don Diavolo, who appears as a principal character in one of the novels featuring The Great Merlini. "Don Diavolo is a magician who perfects his tricks in a Greenwich Village basement where he is frequently visited by the harried Inspector Church of Homicide, either to arrest the Don for an impossible crime or to ask him to solve it.

Reviews

[Bruce · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a pulp-type mystery, with very little attention given to characterization, but full of action, plot twists and snappy dialogue. It's interesting to contrast it with, say, an Agatha Christie. Sustaining the forward motion of a plot for a whole novel is a feat seldom achieved; there are inevitable lulls for exposition and transitions. Christie fills them with interesting character development which (when she's at her best) dovetails with the mystery plot. The pulp mystery doesn't have that option, and so the lulls are dull unless the author can come up with something else of interest. Clayton Rawson does fairly well with asides on the art of prestidigitation and the various argots of circus workers and criminals which he does manage to make relevant to the action.

The one exception to the low level of characterization is the great Merlini, a superb detective: awe-inspiring in his feats of ratiocination and magic, and personable and witty to boot. The sequence where he and his sidekick are arrested for the murder and must figure out a way to escape is a very exciting high point.

[Glen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm always a sucker for the magician detective subgenre.

A woman takes a Headless Lady display from Merlini's magic shop. In order to track her down, Merlini and the narrator join a circus, and get involved in a murder plot.

A very good mystery with lots of atmosphere.

[Lisa Kucharski · Rating 3 out of 5]

A more chaotic story line that the previous stories, also this one involves the circus world and the "argot" can get a bit confusing and add some density to the story that doesn't help all the time.

The murderer was an interesting one and one that I didn't figure out so easily, it was a great set up for a murder mystery- just feel that it was overcrowded with the slang of the world, and their explanations, then the jumping about from place to place and trying to track people.

One character Stuart Towne was in this story, (won't give away his secret) but the fun thing is that this is the name that Clayton Rawson wrote a series of short mysteries under. So, we are briefly introduced to his alias in this mystery.

If you had to skip one of these stories, you could pick this one. However, if you are really interested in circus stuff then you should read it.

[Dennis Miller · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love magicians and circuses and like to get behind-the-scenes to see what life is really like behind the magic and the makeup. "The Headless Lady" did that but in stilted kind of way. While the author uses circus and magic terms, he also feels compelled to translate them, either through character dialogue or explanations in parentheses. I had the feeling throughout the book that author Clayton Rawson was just too self-conscious about being a proper author. The novel is also dated in its stereotype view of women and racist view of blacks who are referred to as "bucks."

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Great Merlini is on the hunt, after a mysterious woman breaks into his magic shop and steals the Headless Lady apparatus. He soon tracks her to the Hannum Brothers' Circus, only to learn that the owner is newly dead in an unexplained auto accident. Merlini joins his many circus friends to investigate, despite the dangers of an unknown murderer and the rural cops, many of them on the take, and some of whom suspicious of him. Another great story from Rawson.

[Summer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Like the last book, this mystery chugs along for a while, hammering at alibis and figuring out who knew what when, and then suddenly in the last couple of chapters throws in a B plot happening in the outside world, which was the source of the mystery the whole time. Not the most thrilling way to wrap up a mystery. There were also a lot of very clunky asides translating circus talk, which really should have been footnotes or a glossary. Still a decent book, though it is not going to be a favorite.
The ebook, by the way, is riddled with typos that were very obviously generated by OCR scanning the paper book and then not editing it properly afterwards. Shoddy, and unfortunately very common with Kindle editions of older books. The others in this series have the same flaw.
Still, I enjoyed scenes like the magicians' convention, and Merlini and Harte busting out of jail.

[Joe · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is as much an exploration of a now-vanished world of travelling circuses and the performers who worked in them as it is murder mystery. The plot is labyrinthine, the solution laboured and interminable, but it holds together, as Rawson is scrupulously fair. It's not riveting or compelling, but the circus element more than justifies it.

[March · Rating 1 out of 5]

Rawson is more interested in deluging the reader with circus lore and argot than crafting a puzzle plot. Fine, if that is what you're looking for, but locked-room mystery fans will be disappointed. Edmund Wilson's comparison of reading mysteries to swallowing a pound of packing peanuts "in order to find at the bottom a few bent and rusty nails" never seemed more apt.

[Jack Heath]

Synopsis: when Major Hannum, the owner of the circus, is killed in a suspicious car accident, Merlini the magician decides to investigate.