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Judith Janeway believes that she was born with a Ticonderoga no. 2 pencil in one hand and a canary yellow lined pad in the other because she can't remember a time when she wasn't writing stories. Her current story, The Magician's Daughter, is the first in a series of three mysteries. Judith lives in the San Francisco Bay Area and writes in the interstices of a life that encompasses working, traveling, having fun with family and friends, and playing far too much sudoku.
In the opening chapter of this solid introduction to a new mystery series from Janeway (An Accidental Marriage), 24-year-old magician Valentine Hill is just finishing up a show outside San Francisco's Golden Pirate Casino when a man in the crowd steals her donation hat. Meanwhile, another audience member approaches Valentine with information about her con-artist mother, Elizabeth Hill (aka Beth Hull), whom she hasn't seen in nine years. After calling it a night and returning to her apartment, Valentine finds that it's been ransacked and her life savings stolen, apparently by a spurned suitor. The second chapter is equally crammed with unlikely events: Valentine locates her mother's apartment, gets beat up, evades a scam by someone posing as an FBI agent, and more. Some readers may grow weary of the countless plot twists, but others will keep turning the pages to find out what happens next to this determined heroine. * Publishers Weekly *
