Trick of Light Book

Kay Farrow, a color-blind photographer who sees the world in black, white and shades of gray, probes the mysterious death of her beloved mentor on a quest that takes her to the darkest intersections of San Francisco's Mission District.

"Eerie as a midnight walk in the fog," said The New York Times Book Review of David Hunt's The Magician's Tale, "showing us light and dark, truth and deception, reality and illusion, even good and evil, in ways we never imagined." "Hunt mesmerizes with his sleight of hand," praised People magazine, "The book's lingering spell lies in the way its heroine's perspective enables us to see, as if for the first time, her beloved city in all its chiaroscuro splendor." When distinguished photojournalist Maddy Yamada is struck by a motorcyclist at two in the morning in a seedy area far from her Marina apartment, Kay Farrow's grief is tempered by suspicion. What could have drawn the reclusive Maddy so far from home at such an hour? Kay believes Maddy's work in progress--blurry, abstract images uncharacteristic of a woman famous for her unsparing clarity of vision--holds elusive clues, clues Kay is determined to decipher. Tracing old photographs and undeveloped film discovered in one of Maddy's cameras, Kay begins to bring into focus Maddy's activities at the time of her death. The territory Kay must cover runs the back alleys of the Mission to the elite enclaves of Pacific Heights and beyond, to a very private shooting preserve miles north of the city. Lurking in her path is a netherworld of decadence and evil--and evidence that Maddy's death was no accident. Kay doggedly pursues a winding path to justice, negotiating a labyrinth of debauchery and dark desires, topping anything she encountered in the course of The Magician's Tale.