In the lobby of their hotel, Danny runs into his old girlfriend Katie who is now the nanny for the two spoiled children of the headlining magician Richard Rock who does a family oriented show with his wife that includes cameos by his children and nanny Katie. Six hours later, Danny finds Katie dead in her room, dressed and posed as if she were involved in risqué sexual behavior. 

Danny can’t believe this is the Katie he has known all his life and wonders if new boyfriend Jake talked her into trying some new things. Danny, however, has a problem. The surveillance cameras only show him going down to the private quarters of the family and he is the first suspect. But, this is Atlantic City and Richard Rock is an illusionist, so nothing is quite what it seems.

Now Danny and Ceepak are taking a tour of the seedier side of Atlantic City trying to learn a magician’s tricks, the ones he showed to an audience, and the ones he used to get him through life, hoping they will lead him to a murderer.  

Ceepak and Danny are a great pair. Ceepak is older and has his Marine experience behind him, including a code of honor that makes him one of the most moral, upright people young Danny has ever met. Danny has grown up on the Jersey shore and is still learning how to be an upstanding adult who makes good choices. He has good instincts as a cop and acts a little impulsively sometimes, making him a good partner for Ceepak, each giving the partnership what the other lacks. 

With the death of Danny’s old girlfriend, he is able to relive some of his high school memories, but is also able to let some of them go, and look more toward the future as a grown up. The mystery takes a decidedly less-than wholesome turn, helping to point the finger toward the real murderer. A competing magician and a look inside the cut-throat, literally, world of illusions rounds out this mystery, and the main characters help raise this a notch above the usual police procedurals.                                                    

--Jennifer Monahan Winberry