Rating: 
Summary: Compelling, Brilliantly Written.
Review: I started reading, thinking I would read a chapter or two and see if I could make any sense out of it. The way the characters were introduced kept my attention glued and I couldn't put it down. I think it was great. I am a photographer and the cover caught my eye. I can't wait to read Trick of Light.
Rating:
Summary: One of the best first efforts I have read in years!
Review: I was immediately pulled in by this novel. Having worked with populations something like these, I felt I was once more standing on dark street corners and dealing with rough trade. This is the ultimate "film noire" book, because of the atmosphere and because of the main character's disability. As a professor of psychology, I kept looking for errors in the the description of the main character's disability. They were not apparent. The development of this woman was fascinating. Well done !!! I am looking forward to this becoming a film. Although it is a different genre, I cannot help but feel the main character is somehow related to Ridley of " Alien" fame. The only difference is that the monsters are us. Humans are far more frightening than anything science fiction writers can dream up. This is a great first effort.
Rating:
Summary: brilliant, scary and absolutely essential reading
Review: i've probably read less than five books cover to cover in one sitting in my life, and this is one of those rare, compelling books you can't put down. it's disturbingly, cleanly written, with taut, spare narrative and complex story line. kay farrow, a photographer, the book's hero, is distraught over the senseless brutal killing of her friend tim, a street hustler who has touched her with his gentle sensitivity, quiet dignity and stark beauty. she commits herself to learning what she can about his senseless murder, feeling that the police won't dig very hard into the death of a male prostitute. she learns maybe more than she wanted too, about tim's beautiful twin sister, his partner in bizarre and mesmerizing sex games for money, his influential and wealthy lovers, his troubled childhood. kay is really only the narrator in this tale, the real story is tim - his life, his death. david hunt has written a powerful, intriguing novel that holds you tightly in its spell, intimate and familiar as a recurring nightmare. it's changed the way i look at fog and color and street people and prostitution. it's not easy reading, but it's necessary.
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: Fierce Woman, Complex multi level plot
Review: Just read a publisher's preview copy. Very strong first person narrative by a woman as fierce as Smila (Smila's sense of snow), or Mallory (O'Connor). The story swept me up. I cared about the people. Author has a bit of a problem with the plot at one or two points and has to slip out of 1st person to describe something the narrator doesn't know about, but I forgive him. The story was quite unexpected and each time I thought it was resloving itself, a little bit more explanation would make the resolution even more interesting. I hope for LOTS more of this character and autho
Rating:
Summary: An exciting tale by a future star
Review: Kay Farrow is a San Francisco black and white photographer, who can
only see the world in black, white, and shades of gray. The thirty-five
year old suffers from achromatism or the inability to discern any colors. Recently Kay has been filming male prostitutes when one of her favorite
models, Tim Lovsey, is found viciously murdered. The police see it as
another minor statistic not worth investigating, but Kay thinks otherwise.
...... Kay investigates the victim's job as a magician's helper. She questions
his sibling, a renowned dominatrix, and the rest of Tim's family. Eventually Kay connects this to a similar case that happened almost two
decades ago that destroyed her own family. Kay needs to be more careful
because the back mean streets of the Bay can be dangerous at anytime, but
when a murderer wants to remain anonymous, the streets can become downright
deadly.
..... THE MAGICIAN'S TALE is an exciting mystery that takes the reader on an
intriguing tour of the foggy San Francisco underground communities (make
mine a tenderloin). Kay is an intriguing character and the story line is
fun to read in spite of too many extemporaneous elements that add nothing. Still, David Hunt has written a street wise who-done-it that will thrill
most fans of the sub-genre.
......Harriet Klausner
Rating:
Summary: An exciting tale by a future star
Review: Kay Farrow is a San Francisco black and white photographer, who canonly see the world in black, white, and shades of gray. The thirty-fiveyear old suffers from achromatism or the inability to discern any colors. Recently Kay has been filming male prostitutes when one of her favorite models, Tim Lovsey, is found viciously murdered. The police see it as another minor statistic not worth investigating, but Kay thinks otherwise. ...... Kay investigates the victim's job as a magician's helper. She questions his sibling, a renowned dominatrix, and the rest of Tim's family. Eventually Kay connects this to a similar case that happened almost two decades ago that destroyed her own family. Kay needs to be more careful because the back mean streets of the Bay can be dangerous at anytime, but when a murderer wants to remain anonymous, the streets can become downright deadly. ..... THE MAGICIAN'S TALE is an exciting mystery that takes the reader on an intriguing tour of the foggy San Francisco underground communities (make mine a tenderloin). Kay is an intriguing character and the story line is fun to read in spite of too many extemporaneous elements that add nothing. Still, David Hunt has written a street wise who-done-it that will thrill most fans of the sub-genre. ......Harriet Klausner
Rating: 
Summary: A mystery in black and white
Review: Kay, the protagonist, has a severe form of daltonism that prevents the sufferer from seeing colors, so the world for her is black and white. In fact her world is black and white in more than one sense, since the characters are neatly divided into "good" and "bad," and you don't have to be a rocket scientist to discover almost at first sight who belongs to which group. I also thought that the protagonist's colorblindness didn't serve any particular purpose and sometimes it stood on the way. After a while it became amusing to find out the occasions in which the author just forgot the heroine could not see colors and made her describe the color of things, often (but not always) catching himself and adding "so I'm told." However, that didn't bother me as much as Kay's boyfriend Sasha. I don't know what the other female readers thought about him but I for one found him incredibly annoying. Not even the cheapest romance writer would have dared to trot out such a picture-perfect, implausible and one-dimensional Prince Charming. After a while I found myself suspecting that in fact he was the murderer, since such a pristine appearance could only hide something sinister. He wasn't of course, he wouldn't do anything as interesting as that. After a while I just skipped the parts in which he appeared, and believe me, this did not affect my understanding of the plot one whit. This is not terrible, however, since this book is just a mystery and certainly it is not among the worst I've read. It is interesting enough and keeps you reading, and the plot hasn't holes, at least not of the gaping kind, though I have to say that there are no big surprises either. As a whole, I'd say it was entertaining, but it does not tempt me to follow the series, especially if Sasha continues to turn up.
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: 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.
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