Sheer delight... This enthralling, playful thriller can be enjoyed for its virtuosic recreation of the period' THE SUNDAY TIMES

Spycraft and magic have always been strange but agreeable bedfellows, and a recent trend for merging both branches of the dark arts is gathering momentum in fiction. A British secret service agent recruits him for a mission which requires sleight-of-hand skills. But is he dealing with a double agent? Are his handlers British? Soviets? Louis is taken against his will, removed from his friends and fiancée, and thrust into a Kafkaesque world of mind games. He is sent into Czechoslovakia to investigate the sinister ‘Funhouse’ where it seems magicians can fool magicians. Thriller set in the world of 1950s magic, co-written by Derren Brown's show-creating partner and one of the League of Gentlemen (who has apparently written a novel before). I am generally cautious of novels by people off the telly, on the grounds of having read novels by people off the telly (especially the ones infesting children's publishing like Japanese knotweed, don't start me on that), but Nyman is clearly a genius and I love stage magic with an abiding passion, so I had to have it.

Browse articles by tag

This book is huge fun - gripping, informative and very clever. I didn't want it to end! -- Peter James

Jeremy Dyson is co-creator of the West End hit play and film Ghost Stories, and a founding member of the team behind award-winning BBC series The League of Gentlemen. He has written and script edited many series, including Killing Eve. He is the writer of a novel and two collections of short stories, one the Edge Hill award winner The Crane that Builds the Cranes. An interesting and pleasurable thriller-type read, but not one with the flash and exuberance I might have expected. To many that will be to its credit. I came to this knowing nothing, beyond the reputation of the authorial pair behind it. So I'll hide the next para to keep the plot secret, for those who want the same. I reccomend this for everyone. I reccomend it if you need some comfort (weird but trust me) or you need some adventure. Read this if you’ve lived.Intriguing and completely original, this Cold War spy novel is just what every bookshelf needs’ W.C. RYAN Dyson said: “We grew up in an era when you had things like The Amazing World of Kreskin on TV at lunchtimes and Uri Geller, and these things were presented to you as something that was absolutely real.” Vertue said: “This book is a rollercoaster. A gorgeous period setting in the ‘50s with a very different kind of hero – plus magic and espionage and cliffhanger after cliffhanger. We couldn’t put it down – and when we make it, audiences won’t be able to switch it off.” It is well written, and the agent/double agent conundrum adds a twist to what would otherwise have been a simple story about surviving torture. That took me to the blurb which sounded so delicious it rendered me powerless to resist. So I didn't!