Rebecca Josephy on magic and detective fiction.

On The Magic Book podcast, Rebecca Josephy (Oakland Univ) talks about the collection she edited, Magic, Magicians and Detective Fiction: Essays on Intersecting Modes of Mystery (McFarland, 2025), on the use of magic and magicians in mysteries, including discussion of impossible crimes and supernatural elements. It analyzes this subgenre's nineteenth-century roots and features reflections on writers such as Canadian-born author Grant Allen (An African Millionaire), Japanese writer Edogawa Ranpo, and American magician-author-editor-illustrator Clayton Rawson. Josephy, a French literature and detective fiction specialist, contributes an essay on gentleman thief Arsène Lupin, created by Maurice Leblanc.

• Review of Magic, Magicians and Detective Fiction in Mythlore, vol. 43, no. 2 (2025). 

• Read about Josephy's earlier Clues article, "A Study in Daniel: Tracing the Biblical Origins of Sherlock Holmes" (38.1, 2020)