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A Midnight Puzzle: A Secret Staircase Novel (Secret Staircase Mysteries Book 3) Kindle Edition

4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars 162 ratings

In heroine Tempest Raj, modern-day queen of the locked room mystery Gigi Pandian has created a brilliant homage to the greats of classic detective fiction.

Secret Staircase Construction is under attack, and Tempest Raj feels helpless. After former client Julian Rhodes tried to kill his wife, he blamed her "accident" on the home renovation company’s craftsmanship. Now the family business—known for bringing magic into homes through hidden doors, floating staircases, and architectural puzzle walls—is at a breaking point. No amount of Scottish and Indian meals from her grandfather can distract Tempest from the truth: they’re being framed.

When Tempest receives an urgent midnight phone call from Julian, she decides to meet him at the historic Whispering Creek Theater—only to find his dead body, a sword through his chest. After a blade appears from thin air to claim another victim, Tempest is certain they’re dealing with a booby trap… something Secret Staircase Construction could easily build. Tempest refuses to wait for the investigation to turn to her or her loved ones. She knows the pieces of the puzzle are right in front of her, she just has to put them together correctly before more disaster strikes.

Multiple award-winning author Gigi Pandian and her sleuth Tempest Raj return in
A Midnight Puzzle, where an old theater reveals a deadly booby trap, secrets, and one puzzle of a mystery.

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Editorial Reviews

Review

Praise for A Midnight Puzzle

“An eerie booby trap, hidden secrets and a puzzle to solve… this whodunit penned by Gigi Pandian has it all.” –
Woman’s World

“Pandian triumphs again… with this fiendishly clever, intricately constructed whodunit. It’s another home run from a major talent.
―Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“This locked-room mystery is a fun read for cozy fans.” –
Library Journal

“Plot twists abound in this mystery of misdirection.” –
Booklist

“The pacing and writing elevate
A Midnight Puzzle to a must-read for the cozy-mystery fan.” –First Clue

“Fun, light, and clever.” –Book Riot

"Be warned, this book will have you turning pages well past midnight."–Vivien Chien

"[A] uniquely fascinating world." –Donna Andrews

"A Midnight Puzzle has troublesome relationships, family secrets and―of course!―a bamboozling impossible crime.” –Catriona McPherson

"The best in modern locked room mysteries. The mysteries are excellent, the clueing superb, and the characters engaging. A wonderful combination of Golden Age mystifying with modern storytelling." ―Douglas G. Greene, John Dickson Carr biographer and mystery historian

Praise for The Secret Staircase Mysteries

"Wildly entertaining." –
The New York Times Book Review

“Super-fun.” –The Boston Globe

"Delightful.” –
Reader’s Digest

"[A] brilliant homage to classic golden age authors.” –
Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"Pandian's writing bursts with heart and hope.” ―BookPage (starred review)

About the Author

GIGI PANDIAN is the USA Today bestselling and multiple-award-winning author of the Secret Staircase mysteries, inspired by elements from her own family background. She is also the author of the Accidental Alchemist mysteries, the Jaya Jones Treasure Hunt mysteries, and more than a dozen locked-room mystery short stories. Pandian has won Agatha, Anthony, Lefty, and Derringer awards, and was a finalist for an Edgar Award. A breast cancer survivor and accidental almost-vegan who adores cooking, she lives with her husband in Northern California.

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B0C1X714X2
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Minotaur Books (March 19, 2024)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ March 19, 2024
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 7163 KB
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 342 pages
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars 162 ratings

About the author

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Gigi Pandian
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GIGI PANDIAN is a USA Today bestselling and award-winning mystery author, breast cancer survivor, and locked-room mystery enthusiast. Her email newsletter is filled with bookish fun and comes with a free novelette and mini cookbook.

Gigi writes the Secret Staircase mysteries, Accidental Alchemist mysteries, and Jaya Jones Treasure Hunt mysteries, all of which are fun, lighthearted mysteries without any graphic violence.

Gigi's debut novel was awarded a Malice Domestic Grant, she's been short-listed for the Edgar Award, and her mysteries have won Anthony, Agatha, Lefty, and Derringer awards. She lives in northern California with her husband and a gargoyle who watches over the backyard garden.

Customer reviews

4.4 out of 5 stars
162 global ratings

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Customers say

Customers enjoy the clever plot and clever clues in this mystery. They praise the writing style as excellent and fabulous, and find the characters engaging. The book keeps readers guessing throughout, making it a great choice for fans of locked room mysteries.

AI-generated from the text of customer reviews

5 customers mention "Storyline"5 positive0 negative

Customers enjoy the storyline. They say it keeps them guessing throughout, and recommend it for fans of locked room mysteries. The author is praised as a master storyteller with clever clues and misdirection.

"...I will miss them, but it opens up the story line and I can’t wait to see where book 4 takes us. Hopefully we won’t have to wait too long." Read more

"...This story kept me guessing throughout! I recommend that you begin with book one and let the revelations unfold. Gigi is a master story teller...." Read more

"If you’re looking for a book featuring good friends plus a great twisted story, try this book...." Read more

"Everything a mystery should have: clever clues and misdirections, a tight circle of trusted cohorts as well as great (and conflicting/conflicted)..." Read more

4 customers mention "Writing style"4 positive0 negative

Customers enjoy the writing style. They find the mystery series fabulous and love the author's work.

"...third installment in the Secret Staircase Mystery series is, simply, fabulous...." Read more

"Another great book...." Read more

"As usual Gigi Pandian writes excellent books. She is one of the few authors I buy the print book to add to my shelves. Love her work." Read more

"Brilliant!..." Read more

3 customers mention "Readability"3 positive0 negative

Customers enjoy the book's readability. They become invested in the characters and mystery.

"...The reader becomes more invested in the characters and in the mystery of that particular book. This story kept me guessing throughout!..." Read more

"...now Tempest, her family and her close friends have all become quite beloved characters whose antics and neuroses are quite believable...." Read more

"...That says a lot because they’re a fast easy read with characters that you love...." Read more

A great new mystery in this cerebral series!
4 out of 5 stars
A great new mystery in this cerebral series!
Gigi Pandian’s A Midnight Puzzle is a fun, relatively light mystery centering around a family of magicians. This premise feels fresh—as a frequent mystery reader I don’t think I’ve come across something like this before. A Midnight Puzzle is the third book in Pandian’s Secret Staircase Mystery series and I do think some context is lost if you haven’t read the first two, though this can be read as a standalone if you’re ok not fully understanding certain aspects of prior books that led to where this book begins. This is in many ways the conclusion to a three-novel arc within the series.Classic illusionist Nicodemus the Necromancer has always been a mentor to Tempest Raj (of the Raj family of magicians). When Nicodemus begins his retirement tour, it comes with bittersweet feelings about leaving his stage persona and work behind. Tempest doesn’t relate—she has left stage magic behind and is working at her father’s company, Secret Staircase Construction. This outlet allows Tempest to be creative and work with her hands to create illusory works of architectural art.Tempest has always lived with a cloud over her that her father’s family has been cursed for centuries. The curse posits that the eldest child of the Raj family dies by magic. Tempest has seen other members of their family fall victim to the curse. Tempest is glad to work in her current role away from magic. When her client Julian Rhodes mysteriously dies, it’s unclear whether the cause of death was supernatural or something more grounded in the physical world. Tempest must prove that Secret Staircase wasn’t responsible for his death and determine how this all connects to her family’s curse!This book picks up where the previous book The Raven Thief left off and it does feel like a conclusion of sorts to the mystery that has spanned the first three books. When I finished, I actually wondered if Pandian plans to wrap this as a trilogy or continue the series. Either way would work—there is certainly plenty of story that could be told about the Raj family in future books.The combination of Indian and Scottish heritage in this series has been a high point. The food always sounds delicious and I find myself wanting to be there to try what the characters are eating—especially the food cooked by Tempest’s grandfather, Ash! There are a few recipes at the end of the book so perhaps I will be able to try some of the food myself.The blend of the two cultures is one of my favorite parts to this series. In A Midnight Puzzle, the reader finally gets an answer to what happened to Tempest’s mother and aunt who used to work together as illusionists. Is there truly a curse on their family that the oldest dies by magic? You’ll have to read the book to find out!This is more cerebral than an average cozy mystery, though it definitely still fits within the genre. I think it is fun in these books that the trope in cozy mysteries of “is that a dead body or a mannequin?” actually makes a ton of sense in this series because there are plenty of fake deaths in magic! The plot is complex—a lot of subplots interweave into the central mystery. The plot is really a puzzle in and of itself, but if you give it the time you’ll surely find the twists at the end satisfying!Thank you Minotaur Books for my copy. Opinions are my own.
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Top reviews from the United States

  • Reviewed in the United States on April 19, 2024
    A Midnight Puzzle, the third installment in the Secret Staircase Mystery series is, simply, fabulous. Lots of storylines that have over-arched the three book are finally explained and wonderfully so. Although, now that the secrets have been revealed, I am little let down. I will miss them, but it opens up the story line and I can’t wait to see where book 4 takes us. Hopefully we won’t have to wait too long.
    One person found this helpful
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  • Reviewed in the United States on April 13, 2024
    This feels like the end of the series with almost everything wrapped up. I had hoped to be with Tempest a little while longer. There were a few twists I really didn’t see coming
  • Reviewed in the United States on March 21, 2024
    Each Secret Staircase novel by Gigi Pandian, takes the reader further into the adventures of Tempest Raj, her family, and her friends. The reader becomes more invested in the characters and in the mystery of that particular book.

    This story kept me guessing throughout! I recommend that you begin with book one and let the revelations unfold. Gigi is a master story teller. Every new book is a greater pleasure to read than the last.
  • Reviewed in the United States on June 6, 2024
    Another great book.
    I love this series, but I have to confess that if Gigi was the author of cereal box content listings, I'd probably love reading those too! All of her books are must reads for me.
    lf you follow this series, you'll appreciate all the answers that are revealed. If you haven't read the first two books, I'd highly recommend you devour those before you read this. Definitely NOT a stand alone as far as I'm concerned.
  • Reviewed in the United States on April 28, 2024
    A MIDNIGHT PUZZLE is the third book in the Secret Staircase Mysteries, a delightful cozy mystery series featuring Tempest Raj, a stage magician/illusionist, and her family. The series gets its name from her father’s architecture-and-construction company, which specializes in secret rooms, hidden staircases, and other architectural puzzles. Tempest’s skills in creating and figuring out illusions come in very handy as she and her friends investigate several murders, each involving the Secret Staircase firm’s clients or jobsite in some way.

    There’s a lot I love about these books, from the fiendishly hard-to-solve locked-room plots, to the multicultural Tempest and her equally diverse family and friends, to the magic and illusions. (Note: Ms. Pandian is careful not to reveal the secrets behind any illusions or magic tricks that have not yet been made public.) Tempest herself is engaging and sympathetic, albeit somewhat obsessed with solving the mysteries impacting her family (and defying police orders to stay out of their investigation.) And the plots usually keep me guessing; I can sometimes figure out who, but I have yet to win the trifecta of “who, how, and why.”

    The third installment in the series wraps up a three-book arc concerning the disappearance and presumed murder of Tempest’s mother 5 years earlier. This was a subplot in the first book, but became significantly more important in the second book. In A MIDNIGHT PUZZLE, it takes center stage, deeply entwined with the present-day murder of one of Secret Staircase’s most unpleasant clients to date. But as rumors swirl that the ghost of Tempest’s mom was responsible, and then her mentor Nico is injured, Tempest feels compelled to investigate to clear her mother’s name and save her father’s company. As usual, Tempest is aided by her friends Ivy, a mystery fan and budding librarian; Sanjay, the “Hindi Houdini”; and Gideon, a stone sculptor who works for Tempest’s dad (and is sweet on Tempest.) We also see a lot more of Tempest’s aforementioned mentor, Nicodemus “the Necromancer,” a British illusionist with a side talent for creating amazing paper-cutout pop-ups.

    This time, I fared better in figuring out “who,” although I missed some of “why” and a fair bit of “how.” I did not, however, find it *easy* to sort out the “who,” so the mystery kept me well entertained. I enjoyed the various twists and turns of the plot, but this time around, I was more exasperated by the way Tempest continued to ignore the police detective’s injunctions to stay out of things. I completely understood her motivations, and that particular detective is an absolute arse, but you can’t go around breaking the law (and breaking into buildings) just because the detective in charge of the case is pigheaded.

    That aside, though, I really enjoyed A MIDNIGHT PUZZLE. And although this three-book arc has wrapped up, there is a clear hint in the last chapter that Tempest’s role as an amateur investigator is far from over. I’m looking forward to more of Tempest, her family, and Ms. Pandian’s locked-room mysteries.
  • Reviewed in the United States on March 23, 2024
    Former stage magician and illusionist Tempest Raj is settling into her new life as a co-creator of secret rooms in her father’s construction firm, Secret Staircase Construction, when problems for the firm begin: after the wife of a client falls on a special staircase the company had built, putting her in a coma, the husband threatens to sue the company for negligence. It doesn’t matter that all signs point to the husband being the culprit, or that he has a history of such lawsuits, the situation is such that Secret Staircase Construction may be destroyed because of the lawsuit. So when the man is found murdered at the theater Tempest has rented for a final magic show, she feels relieved, but compelled to find out just who murdered the man, and why he was murdered in that particular place, the site of her own mother’s disappearance…. This is the third Secret Staircase novel, and by now Tempest, her family and her close friends have all become quite beloved characters whose antics and neuroses are quite believable. I had a bit of trouble early on, when Ms. Pandian repeated the same information several times; it felt like she didn’t trust her readers to remember items from one chapter to the next. However, that repetition resolved after a while and it was subsequently easy to go with the flow of the writing, which is quite enjoyable in itself. Having lived for many years in the San Francisco Bay Area, I also much appreciate the setting of the novels (as a slightly masked version of Berkeley), but obviously one doesn’t need to be a resident of the area to enjoy the stories! There is a resolution of some of Tempest’s major life mysteries at the end of this book, but fortunately Ms. Pandian in her Afterword mentions that she still has many more stories to tell about Tempest and her world, which is great because I definitely want to read more of them! Recommended, but start with “Under Lock and Skeleton Key,” the first in the series.
  • Reviewed in the United States on March 30, 2024
    If you’re looking for a book featuring good friends plus a great twisted story, try this book. Every book in this series is better than the book before it. That says a lot because they’re a fast easy read with characters that you love. I highly recommend Tempest and her cohorts to any person who loves locked room mysteries.
    One person found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

  • Fallen Guru
    3.0 out of 5 stars An ok series entry.
    Reviewed in Germany on April 2, 2024
    Good setting / world building, good characters, decent pacing. As always.
    Comparatively weak puzzle(s). By which I mean the solutions aren't "Wow, that's clever!" but more like "Well, alright then". As always.

    I wish the author didn't recap quite so much for new readers, though. I found myself skimming bits. Bit heavy on the romance (or lack of it), too.

    Looking back, the best bit was the overarching story arc and mystery, and that's done now. I expected to be that resolution to be a springboard into something more, but no, it's just done (not unlike the other puzzles, in that regard). It has (rather clumsy) sequel bait, but I'm not sure that the series is feasible without the Raj family mystery.

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