Summary

Chapter 1 takes place in Waterloo, Iowa, on July 23 1905 at six o clock in the evening. A female magician - who the reader will later come to know by both the names Ada Bates and Arden the Amazing – prepares for her performance and decides that she will kill someone tonight.

In the audience for Arden’s performance is Holt, a small town policeman, who is attending the show with his best friend Mose, the sheriff of Waterloo. Holt watches Arden perform her most famous trick: sawing a man in half. The trick makes Holt queasy and he has to leave the theater.

Later that night, Holt and Mose are interrupted, while having a drink, by a report of a murder at the theater. Both men return to the theater to see a dead body hidden in the trunk used for Arden’s infamous Halved Man...