Book review: Now You See It...
Although mainly known as a horror writer, Richard Matheson plays around in a couple of different genres, and his 1995 novel Now You See It... is a particularly bonkers version of a locked room mystery. Once a big name, now a failing magician, The Great Delacorte gets his wife, assistant, and agent into his study where a seemingly endless combination of tricks and illusions reveals all their secrets and festering resentments. Set in a single room over a single day and heavy in witty banter, I couldn’t help imagining it as a stage play while I was reading it, and wonder if Matheson did have something like Sleuth at the back of his mind when he wrote it. It’s quite fun as everyone seems to die horribly several times only for another illusion to be revealed, but ultimately I’m not sure this sort of story works as well as a novel as it would on stage or screen - being told our eyes have been deceived isn’t quite the same as actually experiencing an illusion.