The response to Glen David Gold's debut novel, Carter Beats the Devil was extraordinary. He hypnotized us with his portrait of a 1920s magic-obsessed America and of Charles Carter -- a.k.a. Carter the Great -- a young master performer whose skill as an illusionist exceeded even that of the great Houdini.

Filled with historical references that evoke the excesses and exuberance of Roaring Twenties pre-Depression America, Carter Beats the Devil is a complex and illuminating story of one man's journey through a magical and sometimes dangerous world, where illusion is everything.