The Magic Bullet

A Minnesota Mystery

By: Larry Millett

Narrated by: Steve Hendrickson

St. Paul, Minnesota. October 1, 1917. High above the city, a renowned local financier named Artemis Dodge lies facedown on the floor of his armored penthouse sanctuary, a single bullet hole in his head. Thirty stories up, in the city’s tallest building, and not a shred of evidence or sign pointing to anyone having broken into the wealthy man’s fortress. It is - to all appearances - an impossible crime.

Enter Shadwell Rafferty: Irishman, St. Paul saloonkeeper, sometime detective, and old friend of the celebrated sleuth Sherlock Holmes. Summoned by Louis B. Hill - son of railroad magnate James J. Hill - to investigate, Rafferty descends into a world dominated by greedy tycoons and awash in political intrigue and wartime fearmongering. Suspects lurk in every corner of the city - including Dodge’s beautiful young widow, his slippery assistant, and a shadowy anarchist - and Rafferty pursues them from the streets of Ramsey Hill and the rooms of the Ryan Hotel to the labyrinthine caves under the Schmidt brewery. Matching wits with his foes at the police department and his unsavory rival, the St. Paul detective Mordecai Jones, Rafferty knows that in order to bring a killer to justice he must first unravel the riddle of a single bullet fired in a locked room, three hundred feet above the streets of St. Paul.

Set during a bitter streetcar strike and amid the clandestine activities of a ruthless commission charged with enforcing wartime patriotism, Larry Millett has created a classic and perfectly executed locked-room mystery in the great tradition of John Dickson Carr. From locked rooms and civil unrest, to murder and wartime paranoia, The Magic Bullet presents Rafferty’s most challenging case, and its gripping conclusion - with a timely assist from Sherlock Holmes - finds both Rafferty and Millett at the top of their games.

©2011 Larry Millett (P)2021 Spoken Realms

Another wonderful tail.

Another wonderful tail. I'm sorry that the series will end after a few more books.

Great mystery!!!

I have really enjoyed this series from start to finish. It is a shame that Sherlock Holmes was not a part of the story as much as he has been featured in other works by the author, but it was nice to spend the majority of the adventure with Rafferty. I highly recommend this book!

Another great story

A more focused mystery on Rafeti very enjoyable. It is a good read. To change

The finest of Millets Series

I thought that this book was exceptional. Larry has done such a Great job developing Rafferty as a character throughout the last five books, and brings it home with this perpetually interesting locked room mystery. The reader is immediately drawn into the story by the well presented narrative. Sherlock homes makes a brief appearance, and readers of the series will understand the circumstances surrounding his noted absence.

Like Suicide Squad with the Joker

Only complaint was that Sherlock Holmes was barely in the story. other than that, not bad