The Ambitious Card: A Fun & Funny Mystery! (The Eli Marks Mysteries Book 1)

I liked the characters and the peek behind the curtain of magicianship.

What a completely unexpected surprise!!! I loved this book. I usually read heavy mysteries and thrillers by authors like Jason Kasper, Jack Mars, Lee Child, Vince Flynn, etc. It takes a lot to make me laugh out loud. I love comedians but I usually smile at the jokes. It has to be really funny for me to laugh out loud. I laughed so many times in this book, and yet I was totally immersed in the magic acts (I love magic and card tricks too) and the mystery.I highly recommend this book. This is the first book I've read by this author but it won't be the last.

The storyline was a little different than I’m used to reading but I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I thought it was well written and clever and parts.

Eli Marks is a magician who lives with his uncle, Harry Marks, also a magician, in an apartment over Chicago Magic, a magic store that they operate. Eli is asked by a local television station to debunk a popular mentalist, known only as Grey. Eli exposes several of Grey’s tricks by using a deck of cards, performing a trick called the Ambitious Card, to show how the mentalist was able to misdirect the attention of his audience. The next day it is discovered that the mentalist Grey has been murdered, with a king of hearts card left on his body. The police consider Eli to be a “person of interest” in this murder. When other popular psychics are murdered, that have a connection with Eli, the police are convinced that he is involved, if not the murderer. The body count continues to increase until Eli is forced to conduct his own investigation in order to prove his innocence.I enjoyed reading this book and would recommend it. I found the characters in the story to be unique individuals that were involved with either magic or various psychic abilities, or they were charlatans only interested in separating their clients from their money. Simple magic tricks were explained and cleverly integrated into the plot of the novel. This is the first book in a series featuring the magician, Eli Mark.

Someone else has written a review mentioning magicians writing books with weak plots, and, yes, I believe that is often a problem when a person who has a passion or an expertise tries writing a novel with that passion or expertise as its matrix.However I can't say that about "The Ambitious Card". The worst I can say about the book is that it is "workman-like". In other words I can't go on about the author's skills as a craftsman of words, or the profundity of his ideas. But, on the other hand, I didn't come to this book expecting Dickens. All of this may sound like a back-handed compliment, for which I apologize.Because the fact is that this was an extremely enjoyable book. Gaspard has created some characters that have some depth, and I actually did find myself caring for them, and caring what happened to them. The magic, although it is certainly present, didn't get in the way of the plot, which is a positive achilles heel for books of this type. No, in "The Ambitious Card" the magic is there just enough to give a good flavor to the book, and it is well described, but you never feel like you are tripping over information about magic that is there because that was what the author really wanted to write about.Now as to the mystery, it was reasonably inventive and was superior to the variety one sees on shows like "Castle" (for example) where it is often possible to figure out the villain within the first five or ten minutes because they all follow one or another set formula.(A parenthetical example of the set formula is "The Most Highly Paid Guest Star Did It" formula, which allowed me to amaze and impress my wife for minutes in a row predicting the outcome of episode after episode of "Murder She Wrote", "Diagnosis Murder", and "MacBride", all of which relied on the same formula for their amazingly long runs).On the other hand, I didn't see it coming in "The Ambitious Card" until the end. Along the way I completely enjoyed the book, and wouldn't hesitate to recommend it to anyone, regardless of whether or not they were a magic fan.

Not the “Great American Novel” but a fun read. The characters are likable. The dialogue flows and sound real, and I didn’t know who did it until the end. All the things that keep me up late reading.

Entertaining until the last page. Light read. Funny at times and even suspenseful all tied up in one book here

You will love this mystery with more than a few twists. It will keep you guessing until the end. Unlike most mysteries you will find yourself laughing out Loud.

This came up on my email from Amazon as a free book, so thought ok why not. Well I’m so glad I did, this is a funny charming and sweet little mystery.I will say the mystery isn’t terribly hard, I had it figured out very quickly, however that didn’t detract from my enjoyment.I loved Eli and his uncle Harry and his cronies and loved the insight into the world of magic and illusion.I also enjoyed the humour and actually looked up not only the words to Mediocre Fred, but also the little humorous essay by Ian Fraser “Coyote vs Acme”.I will be buying book 2 in the series.

A whodunit as well as a how is it done.I really enjoyed this book. Eli, his grandfather and his cronies as well as assorted physics mesh together in a great read. Interesting as well as gripping, great characters, well paced and well written, this book marks the beginning of a fascinating series. I'd love to be there for the Thanksgiving dinner as I bet it would be a hoot, but I don't think I'd give Franny a call. Very highly recommend.Right, I'm off to try and find a performance of Mediocre Fred.

This was, for me, an unusual book that mixed magic with crime. Every character was vivid and I soon felt I knew most of them very well, even the minor ones, before I was halfway through the book. I loved the humour, not laugh out loud but sometimes subtle and always clever. Will read more of this writer.

I liked the main characters and their interaction with each other. Quite a complicated plot which was cleverly hidden. Definitely light-hearted and enjoyable. Will read Book 2 soon.

Let me start by saying I hate magic! That out of the way this is a really enjoyable whodunnit. Good story and characters that the magicky bits really rounded out.