The Shoemaker's Magician - (Chicago Saga) by Cynthia Pelayo (Paperback)

About the Book

A fabled lost movie. An increasing body count. How much do you risk for art?

Paloma has been watching the Grand Vespertilio Show her entire life. Grand, America's most beloved horror host showcases classic, low-budget and cult horror movies with a flourish, wearing his black tuxedo and hat, but Paloma has noticed something strange about Grand, stranger than his dark make-up and Gothic television set.

After Paloma's husband, a homicide detective, discovers an obscure movie poster pinned on a mutilated corpse on stage at the Chicago Theater, she knows that the only person that can help solve this mystery is Grand. When another body appears at an abandoned historic movie palace the deaths prove to be connected to a silent film, lost to the ages, but somehow at the center of countless tragedies in Chicago.

The closer Paloma gets to Grand she discovers that his reach is far greater than her first love, horror movies, and even this film. And she soon becomes trapped between protecting a silent movie that's contributed to so much death in her city and the life of her young son. With The Shoemaker's Magician, Cynthia Pelayo continues to establish herself as one of the most powerful voices in riveting, thought-provoking dark fiction.

Book Synopsis

From a Bram Stoker Award-winning author, a cult horror fan discovers that something sinister is at the heart of a series of brutal killings in Chicago.

A fabled lost movie. An increasing body count. How much do you risk for art?

Paloma has been watching the Grand Vespertilio Show her entire life. Grand, America's most beloved horror host, showcases classic, low-budget and cult horror movies with a flourish, wearing his black tuxedo and hat--but Paloma has noticed something strange about Grand.

After Paloma's husband, a homicide detective, discovers an obscure movie poster pinned on a mutilated corpse, she knows that the only person that can help solve this mystery is Grand. When another body appears at an abandoned historic movie palace, the deaths prove to be connected to a silent film, lost to the ages, but somehow at the center of countless tragedies in Chicago. Paloma soon becomes trapped between protecting a silent movie that's contributed to so much death in her city and the life of her young son.

With The Shoemaker's Magician, Cynthia Pelayo continues to establish herself as one of the most powerful voices in riveting, thought-provoking dark fiction.

Review Quotes

"A gripping story filled with ghosts, mystery, and history." --Library Journal (Starred Review)

"Haunting." --Publishers Weekly

About the Author

Cynthia Pelayo is a Bram Stoker Award winning and International Latino Book Award winning author and poet. She writes fairy tales that blend genre and explore concepts of grief, mourning, and cycles of violence. She is the author of Loteria, Santa Muerte, The Missing, Poems of My Night, Into the Forest and All the Way Through, Children of Chicago, Crime Scene, The Shoemaker's Magician, as well as dozens of standalone short stories and poems.