I just finished reading The Prestige and expected it to be as clever as Carter Beats the Devil. No way. (See that review.) Carter misdirects with such subtlety that I finished the book, sat down for a beat or two, then realized that I'd just seen the world's greatest disappearing act.

What a hoot!!

I bought this book because I'd seen it compared to Michael Chabon's "Amazing Adventures," but I should have been warned off by Chabon's own vague, non-commital blurb (which reads, in its entirety, "A top-hat and tails performance"). It is indeed that -- Gold pulls out all the stops, or at least all the ones that relate to action, color, snappy movie dialogue, scenery, and historical trivia. What's lacking is any kind of philosophical depth or symbolic resonance, and in fact the book wants badly to be a screenplay. (Why else would a character, rather than explain that both the secret service and the FBI are after his secret, actually dump a bag of tin soldiers onto the table, then set them up in military formation to demonstrate this concept?)
This is one of those rare books on which I feel I truly wasted my time. I'd recommend it whole-heartedly, though, to someone with no literary background looking for a fun page turner -- someone who enjoys genre detective novels and has never heard of Michael Chabon or Jonathan Lethem or Steve Almond. It's not that kind of book.

The book takes place in the 1920s with a backdrop of Presidential scandal and the advent of television, which plays an interesting role. Carter Beats the Devil is the name of the illusion that is a finale in a magic show. The book is very satisfying in that, on the face of it, the illusions are demystified - the disappearing elephant trick is revealed to be a matter of a double celled screen, for example - but the magic seems to remain anyway, in the fascination of control of the minute muscles of the hands, the ingenuity of the machinery that creates the illusions, and the focus and will it takes to make the seemingly impossible possible. Includes some wonderful reproduction of the posters for the magic shows of that era.

It's really cool. I liked it and will read it again soon

Glen David Gold's "Carter Beats the Devil" is a fictionalized account of the exploits of Charles "Carter the Great" Carter, an American illusionist and magician. Carter, a San Francisco native, was actually a prominent entertainer during ther golden age of magic from the 1890's through the 1920's.

Mixing actual history with at times ponderous storytelling, Gold retells an episode that took place on the San Francisco stage in 1923. Carter playing at the Curran theatre gets an unexpected audience from President Warren G. Harding. Harding immersed in a scandal ridden adminstration and his entourage were touring through the Alaska and the West in what was known as his Voyage of Understanding. Harding implored Carter to include him as a volunteer in one of his illusions. Having successfully participated, Harding was soon thereafter found dead in his hotel room.

Gold proceeds to recount the fictionalized biography of Carter working his way through to current time in his novel. He also follows the action of Secret Service agent Jack Griffin, assigned to unravel the mysterious circumstances of Harding's death.

Gold interestingly leads us through historical events including those concerning the performance of illusions complete with a plot including Houdini, Thurston and other celebrated magicians of the time. He also has Carter crossing paths with the youthful and innocuous genius Philo Farnsworth. Farnsworth credited as being the inventor of televison, played a very marked role in Carter's performances.

Gold whose imaginative historical account bogs down severly at times, concludes his tale with a stupendous explanation of Harding's demise.