The Blood Card
Magic Men Mysteries Book 3
Hardcover | Paperback | Kindle | Audiobook
By Elly Griffiths
Publisher: Mariner Books | Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Release date: September 5, 2017
Paperback release date: September 4, 2018

A police inspector and a stage magician team up to investigate the murder of their old wartime commander as well as a possibly related case of the suspicious death of a local gypsy fortune-teller in The Blood Card, the third book in the Magic Men Mysteries series by Elly Griffiths.

It’s May 1953, and all of London is prepping for the imminent coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. Detective Inspector Edgar Stephens is busy investigating the death of Madame Zabini, a local gypsy psychic whose body had washed up by the pier, while nearby his best friend and old World War II buddy, the famous magician Max Mephisto, prepares for a prominent two-week run at the Theatre Royal during a time when people more and more are staying home to get their entertainment via television. The two friends are then summoned together by General Petre to the scene of the murder of Colonel Peter Cartwright, the man who had recruited them into the Magic Men, a top secret wartime espionage unit.

A few months ago, the U.K.’s Royal Mail released a set of stamps inspired by the works of Agatha Christie, one of the greatest mystery writers of all time, in honor of the 100th anniversary of her first detective story – The Mysterious Affair at Styles, which introduced Hercule Poirot, the famous fictional Belgian detective. But these are no ordinary stamps.

Each of the six designs is based on one of Christie’s popular novels and each contains hidden clues pertaining to its respective title — Murder on the Orient Express, The Body in the Library, And Then There Were None, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, A Murder is Announced, and the aforementioned The Mysterious Affair at Styles.

Check out images of all six designs here below.

The Fade Out, Act One
Written by Ed Brubaker
Illustrated by Sean Phillips
Colored by Elizabeth Breitweiser
Image Comics
Release Date: February 25, 2015
Cover Price: $9.99

If you like your crime noir with an extra dose of darkness, Ed Brubaker has you covered in The Fade Out, Act One from Image Comics.

The setting is Hollywood, 1948, and the cast of characters runs the gamut from sleazy studio security to Clark Gable himself. The story opens as our protagonist Charlie, a screenwriter secretly struggling with PTSD from WWII, discovers the dead body of the leading lady in his current work-in-progress.

What follows is a spiral of drunken blackouts, suspicious memories, and foggy familiarity. Charlie finds himself on the fringes of a studio-constructed murder coverup and doesn’t even know if he might be the killer.

Talk about a bad night.

This might be absolutely nothing, but a mysterious figure all cloaked in black looking eerily similar to the Grim Reaper was spotted on the set of director Christopher Nolan‘s upcoming mega–sequel, The Dark Knight Rises.

Not being very familiar with the Batman mythos, I can’t say I have even the slightest idea who this might be””it could be a certain character in costume, it could be a secret character in hiding, or it could be some random dude who likes dressing up like the Reaper, for all we know.

But while I haven’t the foggiest who it might be, I know plenty of you will have ideas as to who it might be. So head on below now to check out the spy pics (be warned: they are small, low–resolution, and bunched together) and share your thoughts in the comments!