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A review by omnibozo22
The Box Jumper by Lisa Mannetti
3.0
Box Jumpers are slang, somewhat affectionate, for the (ususally) female magician assistants who are required to do all the heavy work on stage during a performance. They are constantly in and out of boxes, being stabbed, beheaded, dismembered and generally mistreated, for the pleasure of the audience. Additionally, though less spoken about, they function as eye candy, especially at key moments when the magicians doesn't want the audience's eyes staring at him during a moment of tricky secret stuff. That's when box jumpers wiggle their stuff and strut across the stage, or bend over to defy gravity with their charms.
This book is barely about them. The protagonist, an assistant to Houdini, mainly does off stage stuff for him, including researching fraudulent mediums. For unknown reasons (fear perhaps), Mannetti changes the names of some real people, especially those in the fake spiritualism business. Only someone who has never read a thing about Houdini will not recognize that Margery is the key antagonist.
A couple of aspects of the book bothered me. Mannetti clearly did lots of research, relying heavily on Kalish's book on Houdini's purported spy activities. Still, she oddly exaggerates, with poor justification, the rumor that Margery was involved in the disappearance of young boys. This book claims there were dozens, but offers no explanation that makes any sense. About that not making sense... Mannetti tries to get out of trouble by resorting to one of the dirty tricks of poor authors... the protagonist goes nuts. ("spirits" seem to be partly or completely to blame... WTF?). The other common crap ending is "...and then I woke up." At least she didn't quite resort to that, as well.
This book is barely about them. The protagonist, an assistant to Houdini, mainly does off stage stuff for him, including researching fraudulent mediums. For unknown reasons (fear perhaps), Mannetti changes the names of some real people, especially those in the fake spiritualism business. Only someone who has never read a thing about Houdini will not recognize that Margery is the key antagonist.
A couple of aspects of the book bothered me. Mannetti clearly did lots of research, relying heavily on Kalish's book on Houdini's purported spy activities. Still, she oddly exaggerates, with poor justification, the rumor that Margery was involved in the disappearance of young boys. This book claims there were dozens, but offers no explanation that makes any sense. About that not making sense... Mannetti tries to get out of trouble by resorting to one of the dirty tricks of poor authors... the protagonist goes nuts. ("spirits" seem to be partly or completely to blame... WTF?). The other common crap ending is "...and then I woke up." At least she didn't quite resort to that, as well.