[Should they read "The Nostradamus Traitor" admirers of Gardner know he] will take an implausible—if not preposterous—premise, weave in enough characters, adventures, mysteries, and twists that, once begun, one has little choice but to continue on to the conclusion to see if the author can possibly unravel it all. Gardner can, and does in a wow finish; after all, he used to be a magician….

Red herrings abound. Soon it is not only things that don't seem to be as they should. People don't seem to be who they're supposed to be. Someone—maybe everyone—is lying….

Rust Hills, Esquire's fiction editor, has written: "The more successful a story based on mystery is in the middle, the more likely it is to fail in the end. The interest, ultimately, is not in the characters and the actions they take, but in the mystery and how it...