Rating: 
Summary: A thriller that delivers!
Review: A fascinating and macabre tale of a woman and what she discovers as she tries to unravel the horrific death of a street hustler. Kay, a color blind photographer, has grown close to this young male hustler during her forays into "street realism" for her photography. I enjoyed the great character development and the way the author slowly peels away their layers. However, some of the subject material might be offensive to certain right wing types as this book has been banned.
Rating:
Summary: Outstanding characters
Review: A really great story. Will keep you up until the wee hours of the morning to finish this one. I'm eager to read the sequel.
Rating:
Summary: Great Read!
Review: A truly fabulous read! The ultimate San Francisco thriller. The best crime story set in San Francisco since Hitchcock's "Vertigo." I read this book because I heard it won the Lambda literary award. Hunt's protagonist, colorblind photographer Kay Farrow, is truly a woman of our times---tough, savvy, smart, tender. It's remarkable to me that a male author could write in the voice of a female character with such authority. And the San Francisco revealed here is marvelously atmospheric. As a devoted San Franciscan, I believe "everyone's favorite city" has never been depicted better in a novel. Highly recommended!
Rating: 
Summary: Knob is so Childish
Review: After finishing the whole book in a day I still wonder why on earth the villian, Knob is so snobbish and easy. He should be tough and street wise but at the end the guy seemed to be so effiminate and easy
Rating:
Summary: My favorite book of the decade
Review: Georgeous, fog-enshrouded prose, well-paced, homo-erotic, sensuous and colorful (in a monochromatic way). I just loved this book, turned about ten of my book-reading friends on to it, and never got a complaint. The author is so familiar with the bay area that I feel like I am there, in the text. Give this book a chance: it is stark, raw and nasty, and tells a tale that is so convoluted and poignant that I defy anyone to put it down after the first 100 pages.
Rating: 
Summary: Another Crime Fighter with a Handicap
Review: It seems fashionable nowadays for mystery authors to provide their protagonist with a physical or emotional handicap. David Hunt's heroine is a photographer with autosomal recessive achromatopsia. It means she is totally color blind, and sees only shades of gray. Naturally she sticks to black and white photography. This is a well written book, and while it is not full of twists and turns that make you gasp in surprise, it is a worthy mystery tale. The heroine, true to today's current writing fashion, is a feisty lady who pursues the bad guys without giving in to threats, and even beatings. This author obviously lives or has lived in San Francisco. For those of us who have also lived there, DH never leaves us in the dark as to which street corner Kay Farrow is standing on. That's a lot of fun for me, but probably won't be exciting to readers in Mobile, Alabama. It is also nice to know that the author has some knowledge of the protagonist's profession. It is jarring when technical mistakes work their way into a book, but DH seems to have at least a nodding acquaintance with photography. When Kay takes a picture of her father outside of his bakery, DH mentions that the resulting image resembles an August Sander portrait. Shows he knows something about the field. I refer to David Hunt as a "he", but I have heard rumors that the author is really a woman. (?)
Rating:
Summary: Great idea, even better execution
Review: Many times you see novels with original or highly creative storylines and then are disappointed upon discovering that the idea is as far as the author gets. THE MAGICIAN'S TALE did not fall into that trap. The story of the female color-blind photographer is just as interesting as the idea of such a combination. The author seems to excel in both characterization and setting - you could almost feel the San Francisco fog. I really enjoy books in which the main character "somehow" becomes involved in a crime and solves the mystery her/himself. I also admit that I like the female detective genre simply because of both the limitations and the opportunities denied or offorded a female detective. This is a great read from a relatively new author. Her's hoping for many more.
Rating:
Summary: An imaginative story, skillfully told.
Review: The Magician's Tale is a very well constructed murder mystery that does not disappoint. The captivating plot unfolds in such a way that I'm sure most readers will have trouble putting the book down. I know I did.
But this novel has a number of great things going for it besides its very strong plot. Photojournalist Kay Farrow is the protagonist and narrator. Her character is extremely well fleshed out and quite believable. And her voice is a remarkably convincing one. So much so, it's hard to believe The Magician's Tale is the work of a male author.
Another very positive aspect is the attention to detail. Be it the ins and outs of the photographer's craft or the sights and sounds of San Francisco, an abundance of nicely detailed description is provided.
There is a fair amount of sexual content, much of it on the kinky side. However, since it is presented in an inoffensive, nonexploitative manner, it serves to enhance rather than detract from the overall storyline. Written with imagination and skill, The Magician's Tale is a fascinating, page turner of a novel.
Rating:
Summary: An imaginative story, skillfully told.
Review: The Magician's Tale is a very well constructed murder mystery that does not disappoint. The captivating plot unfolds in such a way that I'm sure most readers will have trouble putting the book down. I know I did.
But this novel has a number of great things going for it besides its very strong plot. Photojournalist Kay Farrow is the protagonist and narrator. Her character is extremely well fleshed out and quite believable. And her voice is a remarkably convincing one. So much so, it's hard to believe The Magician's Tale is the work of a male author.
Another very positive aspect is the attention to detail. Be it the ins and outs of the photographer's craft or the sights and sounds of San Francisco, an abundance of nicely detailed description is provided.
There is a fair amount of sexual content, much of it on the kinky side. However, since it is presented in an inoffensive, nonexploitative manner, it serves to enhance rather than detract from the overall storyline. Written with imagination and skill, The Magician's Tale is a fascinating, page turner of a novel.
Rating:
Summary: It's all so black and white, in the end
Review: The protagonist in this thriller is different from the run of the mill cop, ex-cop, private eye, etc. Kay Farrow is a photographer who, in an effort to overcome her own fears, draws on her revolted fascination with San Francisco's hustling scene to document commercial sex. She soon finds herself, if not accepted, at least tolerated in the Gulch, where she forms an unusual bond with Tim Lovesey, whose beauty entrances both Kay and her camera. Though their worlds are so different, Kay and Tim become close (or so she thinks), as she works on a series of studies for a potential book. After Tim does not turn up at a pre-arranged meeting, Kay's fears are realised when his head and some body parts turn up in a dumpster. Kay then makes a sometimes uncomfortable alliance with the police investigating the case, and discovers a link with an old serial killing case that, incredibly, involved her ex-cop father. She also discovers she knew absolutely nothing about Tim at all. Like many novels of this genre, The Magician's Tale relies on readers accepting a larger than life protagonist and a complex and incredible set of coincidences. The alliance with the good cop/bad cop police was barely credible, and SFO must be the only place in the world where someone passing by with a camera can photograph a corpse. Or bits of one. Maybe they just have to be daughters of ex-cops. Besides all that, we also have to accept that Kay suffers from an eyesight affliction, which besides rendering her totally colour-blind, makes her vision extremely (often dangerously) sensitive to light, but does not stop her becoming a whiz at b/w photography (obviously with low lighting). Fortunately for her, the tradeoff is enhanced night vision, and since she sees in monochrome anyway (except when the author forgets), it makes it easy for her to categorise everyone - no shades of grey there. Only black hats and white hats would have made the definitions sharper. She also seems to have suffered from tunnel vision, since she often used the viewfinder to filter the view. The Indian boyfriend, Sasha - what purpose did he serve other than to allow Kay to have a very active (though conventional, however sweaty) black and white sex life, perhaps to provide a contrast to Tim's lifestyle. And the guy in the park, P-L-EEASE! Most of those criticisms came in retrospect, as I was quickly absorbed in the voyeuristic look at the world of commercial sex, the blurred line between the hunters and the prey. As the investigation continues, Kay finds the shocking truth about Tim's formative life, and the effect his early mentor's manipulation had on his later years. Along the way, she uncovers a nasty web of power-mongering, police corruption and deception. All faults aside, "The Magician's Tale" is certainly a compelling thriller and it's pretty obvious Kay Farrow is destined to make a return appearance. However, I would reserve my opinion regarding comparisons made on the jacket to Cornwell's Scarpetta, or Hoeg's Smilla until I see something more.
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