Scan barcode
A review by giantarms
Carter Beats the Devil by Glen David Gold
5.0
This copy broke off in the middle of the last sentence which was doubly confounding because the book is about a magician and who knows what kind of screwy trick might be being played on the reader. Fortunately, Google books was kind enough to provide the last page so I could scribble down the last dozen words into the margin to conclude . . .
A Real Good Book, as Defined by Me, a Sucker for Magicians.
The book is long, traversing Cater the Great's life from childhood to middle age. In the prologue, President Harding goes to a magic show and then dies. As the biography unfurls, every once and a while the Secret Service or somebody pops their head in to cause him trouble and the reader is reminded "Oh, yeah! The president died! Wait, why do they think Carter is involved? What? Oh, nevermind now we're back to making things disappear and being scared of girls. Hell yeah!" So it's only KIND of a mystery, which is just as well. I've read a couple lately and I've had my fill for the moment of tense, gritty situations punctuated with the discarding of underclothes. I was refreshed by Carter, a man so cool under pressure, so clever and collected, just absolutely being lost at the whorehouse. A man who could tell you at a glance anything you wanted to know about the oddest of oddities, but being mystified as to how a budget functions.
There's one scene involving a nighttime walk in an Oakland park with a lion that, alone, made the book worth it to me.
My only real criticism is that in the author's enthusiasm for period research, we often find ourselves in the midst of a detailed product description that seems a little out of place. Did I absolutely need to know about the kangaroo thread in the stitches? Why did we spend so much time talking about PEZ? For the one gag at the end of the book? All right. If I'm honest, I kind of enjoyed it. Nevermind, you guys.
Anyway, no mind-collapsing philosophy or achingly delicate prose. Just a great, colorful time with a large cast of screwballs in a warm, nutty world where anything can happen (and absolutely have a reasonable explanation for doing so).
A Real Good Book, as Defined by Me, a Sucker for Magicians.
The book is long, traversing Cater the Great's life from childhood to middle age. In the prologue, President Harding goes to a magic show and then dies. As the biography unfurls, every once and a while the Secret Service or somebody pops their head in to cause him trouble and the reader is reminded "Oh, yeah! The president died! Wait, why do they think Carter is involved? What? Oh, nevermind now we're back to making things disappear and being scared of girls. Hell yeah!" So it's only KIND of a mystery, which is just as well. I've read a couple lately and I've had my fill for the moment of tense, gritty situations punctuated with the discarding of underclothes. I was refreshed by Carter, a man so cool under pressure, so clever and collected, just absolutely being lost at the whorehouse. A man who could tell you at a glance anything you wanted to know about the oddest of oddities, but being mystified as to how a budget functions.
There's one scene involving a nighttime walk in an Oakland park with a lion that, alone, made the book worth it to me.
My only real criticism is that in the author's enthusiasm for period research, we often find ourselves in the midst of a detailed product description that seems a little out of place. Did I absolutely need to know about the kangaroo thread in the stitches? Why did we spend so much time talking about PEZ? For the one gag at the end of the book? All right. If I'm honest, I kind of enjoyed it. Nevermind, you guys.
Anyway, no mind-collapsing philosophy or achingly delicate prose. Just a great, colorful time with a large cast of screwballs in a warm, nutty world where anything can happen (and absolutely have a reasonable explanation for doing so).