Escaping from Houdini

Gr 9 Up—Fresh from attending a forensics school housed in the castle once home to Vlad the Impaler, Audrey Rose Wadsworth and her soon-to-be betrothed, Thomas Cresswell, have set sail on a luxury cruise to America. The ship's entertainment, the Moonlight Carnival, boasts illusions, acrobatics, fire-eating, swordplay, and more, and is led by a promising young escape artist. But when a pattern of deaths begins to emerge, each with a tarot card left at the scene, Audrey Rose and Cresswell start to wonder if the Ringmaster of the Carnival may be involved. The pair launches into an investigation, but the Ringmaster's obvious interest in Audrey Rose, coupled with a midnight bargain, complicates that plan. Unlike the previous two works of the series, the cruise ship Etruria offers a more intimate setting. Period images of carnival life set the scene at the beginning of each chapter and vivid descriptions of the various parts of the vessel allow readers to easily imagine the different locations onboard. Displaying her usual fierce determination and progressive ideals, Audrey Rose is once again a compelling protagonist; her lingering distress over the previous cases of Jack the Ripper and Vlad the Impaler, along with her relationship with the Ringmaster muddling her formerly solid bond with Cresswell, serves to successfully develop her character arc across the three works of the series even further.