Customer Reviews

Disappearing Nightly

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Laura Resnick creates the oddest assortment of characters to investigate a series of disappearances that occur onstage during a magician's act. Women (and one tiger) are disappearing regularly right at the peak of the illusion act involving a vanishing box. The magician's vary- from Joe the perpetually nervous, to Darling Delilah, a drag queen, to the Great Hidalgo who is actually Barclay the stockbroker, to Duke the rhinestone cowboy, to Goudini who is only worried about the return of his tiger, Alice. Esther Diamond is the central figure in the story who narrowly escapes being one of the disappearing acts when Max, a 350 year old alchemist, contacts her to warn her not to continue with the act. Max is a member of the Magnum Collegium, a consortium of true magicians who fight Evil. Esther, together with Max, the aforementioned magicians, and several other unusual characters band together to investigate the disappearances. Meanwhile, Esther herself is a suspect in the Detective Lopez's investigation as she was the understudy to Golly Gee (yes, that was her real name!) when Golly Gee disappeared. This is a cheesy but fun story and I am looking forward to what Resnick will do with the next installment in the series.

Every so often I like to take a break from more serious books, and get a laugh from my reading. I saw this book and read the back cover, and it intrigued me, so I bought it. How can anyone not enjoy reading a book that, as a plot device, has magicians' assistants disappearing from a small box or cage, and then not reappearing? The plot gets really strange when a 350 year old magus turns up, and then more oddball characters. There are evil magicians, demons, and singing vegetables, all guaranteed to bring loud laughter from you! Enjoy, enjoy!

A paranormal mystery in which magicians' assistants actually disappear during disappearing illusions, this book introduces the main character in a new series called "Manhattan Magic."

Esther Diamond gets the chance to be the star of an off-Broadway show when magician's assistant Golly Gee literally dematerializes during the height of the show and doesn't return, bumping Esther up from her job as understudy and lowly wood nymph to a key role. But when Esther receives a dire note and a newspaper clipping about a second disappearance, followed by a visit from a 350-year-old mage, she begins to realize that she must unravel the mystery or risk her own disappearance.

A surprisingly satisfying book. The dialogue was snappy and fun, the mystery unique and the characters a hilarious bunch of misfits. You can't help but root for the good guys as Esther and her growing band of helpers seek out the answers that will help them fight Evil and locate those who have disappeared. There's even some minor but gratifying romantic subplot.

I bought this book in order to get a feel for the style of writing desired by this publisher and ended up trying to squeeze in every moment I could to sit and read. I was stunned by the intelligent, humorous writing. Not an earth-shattering book of lyrical beauty that will end up winning awards all over the place, but I feel like it deserves my highest rating because it was just so darned fun. I can hardly stand the idea that the second book in this new series will not appear till December.

This book was recommended to me by an Amazon.com email. I took a chance, and I'm very glad I did. EXCELLENT READ! I had fun with this book, enjoyed the cast of characters, enjoyed the story. I like the writer's style - the author kept a lot of characters going in this book and didn't lose my interest. I liked the main character Ester. She got involved, and she helped solve the mystery and fight the good fight. The names of the characters might throw you - the names are "theatrical" (like Golly Gee, Darling Delilah), but since the characters are mostly actors or performers, this can be forgiven. I can usually figure out "who done it" in mystery books. However, I thought the author did an excellent job with the mystery elements in this book. Overall, a fun and entertaining read. I look forward to the next book in this new series.

As someone going through real Buffy-withdrawal, I've been sampling the growing variety of supernatural mystery series out there hoping for a new series to love. The good news here is that the dialogue is mostly fresh and funny, and the cast of characters is fun (though there may be too many players for Resnick to manage effectively). The bad news is that the action is extremely minimal, which makes for a long middle stretch, and the story slams to a stop every time a new mystical concept is introduced and explained. Also, the romance is - as pretty much every reviewer has pointed out - decidedly cheesy.

If I haven't read all of the books by Laura Resnick (and her pseudonym Laura Leone), it isn't for lack of trying, and this is definitely one of her best. All struggling actress Esther Diamond wants is to work at her profession, but she's no fool. Moving up from understudy to lead is a dicey proposition when the previous lead vanished without a trace and hasn't been seen since. So it falls to Esther and an eccentric array of companions to find out why magicians' assistants have been vanishing all over Manhattan. And what, if anything, can be done about it?

Equal parts urban fantasy, humor, and mystery, Disappearing Nightly is one of the most enjoyable books I've read this year.

More mystery than romance. Not necessarily for you romance readers out there. The characters in this unusual story are trying to solve several disappearing cases--apparently happening during magic shows. A wild assortment of people join together to find the disappearees and the one or thing responsible. What gives this novel four stars? Well, it's so goofy that it's funny.

This is an amusing mystery novel that fills the supernatural-show biz-working girl-comedy-romance niche. (And you just can't have too many of those, can you?)

"Disappearing Nightly" is one of those ostensibly funny books for which the comments, "smart, cool and wicked funny," and "screwball comedy adventure," appearing on the cover blurbs actually contain grains of truth, a middling rare thing. There are actually a few good laughs. More than that, the author knows what a punchline is, has a reliable sense of comic pacing and manages to toss out some effective wisecracks.

All these things have led at least one earlier Amazon reviewer to label the book as a Janet Evanovich imitation. Far worse things might be said about any book. Nevertheless, I would suggest a different and, I think, better model. The blurb on the back cover has it right with the words, "screwball comedy." Admittedly, the book doesn't achieve the rarified heights of "Bringing Up Baby" or "The Lady Eve," but it certainly catches the tone and flavor of film outings by Joan Blondell and Lucille Ball during the late 1930s and through the 40s.

In fact, as I was reading the book, I found myself casting it as a B+ feature from RKO in 1940. Esther, the self-reliant, wisecracking, off-Broadway understudy would be Joan Blondell (or Lucy if Joan were tied up with another film.) Doc Zadok would be Roland Young (or Leon Errol with Lucy), Lysander, Alan Mowbray; Magnus, Edgar Kennedy and Cowboy Duke, Ralph Bellamy (of course!) The smaller parts for young women could be spread among the era's usual coterie of screen chorines and a small but potentially memorable part for a somewhat older lady could tossed up for grabs among the many superb character actresses then on the payrolls of the studios. Casting the gay transvestites might have been a trifle more difficult in those days, but keep in mind that Cary Grant was wearing a frilly negligee in "Bringing Up Baby" when he announced "I've gone gay!" For Hieronymus, I find myself torn between Mickey Rooney and Shemp Howard.

To those of you for whom Blondell and RKO are at one with Burbage and the Globe and they, in turn, with Roscius and the amphitheater, let me suggest a more recent exemplar: call Doc Zadok "the Doctor," then imagine a TARDIS lurking somewhere in the background, modify the supernatural mumbo-jumbo into pseudo-scientific mumbo-jumbo, and--presto!--you have a fine Doctor Who episode. (I hasten to clarify that I do not refer to the present series or to either of the two comparatively youthful twits currently disgracing the part, but to the vintage, middle-aged or even downright elderly Doctors of the past.)

I have every intention of snatching up the next of Esther's adventures when I stumble upon it and I might even give a try to Ms. Resnik's earlier heroic fantasies. As far as I'm concerned, that sufficiently justifies a five star rating.

Since the book is one of the more expensive Luna line books, I just wanted to throw my two cents in to hopefully save you some of YOUR hard earned money since I already wasted mine on this book.

What started out as quirky and light, quickly turned terribly cheesy, goofy,implausible and over the top cliche' with an almost nonexistent storyline about 80 pages in. It reads like teen fiction-and not in a good way. And yet again in the steadily disappointing Luna line-almost zero romance. Take my advice and skip this sad attempt.

The mystery was almost non-existent. The answer occurred to me 3/4 of the book sooner than the heroine. The characters, however, were great fun and with a little better "mystery" could be really enjoyable.