Carter Beats the Devil Hardcover – September 1, 2001

I enjoyed this book when it was first published, and recently (spurred I think by its superb cover art) decided to give it another go. It is primarily a book of events rather than ideas, but even remembering how it ended I enjoyed it. The character of Charles Carter, the somewhat fictionalized early 20th century magician, is fully developed, even if those around him are not. We feel pain at his loss, we root for him to succeed. The world in which he lives feels entirely real, though Glen David Gold is in fact serving us a pastiche of history and plausible fiction. The magic acts that punctuate the book are uniformly beautiful, richly described and thrilling.The book's one great weakness is the fourth-act showdown with a murderous rival (who is conveniently in the pay of other unrelated adversaries of Charles Carter). After all the careful planning and skill that has characterized our protagonist to this point, the sprawling battle plays out largely by chance. The entire battle feels misplaced, like it comes from a different book, and the denouement to the fight was wasted opportunity.However the book is creative and fun to read and I'm giving it five stars.

Everything a historical novel should be plus more. The author grabs you into the world of early 20th century vaudeville magic and never lets go. The wealth of period detail is always entertaining, never overwhelming. The entire story is magical in the full literary sense.The greatest compliment I can give this book is that it is one of the rare few in which I never checked to see how many pages were left to read.

In the Overture of Carter Beats the Devil, the narrative voice informs us that as people age they either become someone who has seen much of the world or someone who has seen too much of the world. Gold's novel is full of people in the latter category. Magic and illusion are the tools that distract, reawaken and renew these tired minds. This is a book about many things. For me, the thing that remains most strongly is that it is a book about second chances for broken people. Psychoanalysis to disappearance. She never died.Carter Beats the Devil is a truly impressive first novel. It is dense and tightly plotted. Gold has a keen eye for the historical details that fascinate the reader and keep the pages turning. There was never a moment where I found the book to be too long, or where I was bored and indifferent to the characters. Carter himself remains distant from the reader, but I did not find that bad. It seemed to me a little bit in the nature of the magician to be that way.If there is a flaw in the book, it is simply that there is too much included. Ultimately I was much less interested by the historical product placement than Gold appeared to be. The BMW motorcycle and radio/television technology beat felt pale to me compared to the characters and their histories. Unfortunately, these elements are fairly central to the plot, so it meant that I lost interest in some of the major moments.Despite any flaws, I would highly recommend the book and will probably be giving it out as a gift this year. I would warn potential readers that it is a lot moodier than it may appear. Although energetic, it can be very dark at moments. This does not make it less of a novel, but may not be what you expect based on the cover blurbs and its image in the press.

First of all, physically this is an amazing piece of bookcraft. The design is wonderfully meaningful. The book is divided into the acts of Carter's acts, there are wonderful repro's of posters throughout. But that is not what this review is about, it is about the book itself.It has been a long time since I read a work that so touched me and was so vivid and emotional. The story is a wonderful epic, despite what another reviewer from Northridge, who thinks romance novels are important literature, has said. There is such an immense amount of historical fabric, when I had the chance to speak with the author, I asked him what was really fiction and what was historical. Actually the amount of history in the book is even more than I thought. He even knew more about that slice of regional history than he let on in the book. For example, he knew why Carter could walk his lion in the park. The was a law on the Mayor's desk prohibiting such behavior in public, but it was never signed. His description of magic effects is vivid and accurate, having involved some great people in the magic community. Glen is not a magician, but tells the story of Carter because it is so colorful, exotic and full of passion. In short, the author, a long professional writer but a new novelist, has put together a truly wonderful, magical adventure. It follows Carter from childhood to his later years, living his passion for magic and for finding his true love. I was better for having read it. I am looking for this to be a motion picture. It is one of the most prized books in my extensive library.

Well, this is an interesting, creative novel, but it's too long and although there are terrific parts there also are parts where the book fails like a dead rabbit being pulled from a hat. In this almost-700-page opus, Gold gives us fascinating insight into the early 1920s in the Bay area, where super-magician Charles Carter (based on the real magician Charles Carter) plies his trade. In so doing, he runs into no end of unique characters and situations. Reading this book is like visiting a museum of the Roaring Twenties. But like all museums, some of the exhibits are well-done; some not. I found the book interesting but not compelling. It seemed to wander with no point that I could detect. 700 pages is a lot of wandering. I felt that a book about a magician should have more magic -- literary magic, that is. Not a bad book, but could be better.

My son bought me this book for Fathers' Day (to be precise he bought me an Amazon voucher and sent me a list of recommendations to download). He's a lover of all things American from the NFL to the great American novel, but for me it was something refreshing. I haven't read a great deal of American fiction; it was different; it was a pleasant surprise.It's a very long book and, as Fathers' Day was only just over a week ago, it's a credit to Glen David Gold that he got me turning the pages fast enough to have finished already. Opening with a spectacular magic show "Carter Beats The Devil" in which Carter The Great and "The Devil" perform a series of outrageous illusions, each one more mind blowing than the next before ending in a magnificent finale involving audience member President Harding coming to a theatrical end in Grand Guignol style, the novel does nothing by halves.Many of the characters in the book are real; Carter The Great was a famous illusionist, Houdini makes a brief appearance and President Harding was visiting San Francisco at the time that the story begins. As I am not particularly familiar with any of the real characters I simply read it as fiction. After reading the book I checked out Harding and Carter and I think it's fair to say that fiction is the best way to describe it - there's plenty of hocus pocus.After the opening extravaganza we have several story strands involving secret agents, rival magicians, Carter's childhood and his career and love life and Gold plays tricks with the reader as we try to second guess what is real and what is an illusion.Some of the illusions appear far fetched but the author explains in his notes that all of them were performed (or attempted) during the magical music hall heydays that preceded the movies and television. The same feeling of implausibility applies to the plot but I urge you to suspend your cynicism as you would if attending a performance by Derren Brown or David Blaine and simply settle down to be entertained.Its all quite brilliantly done - well written with plenty of humour and it comes together in a wonderful, breathless and exciting finale. And that's where I felt that the novel should have ended as my only minor gripe was in the lengthy epilogue in which the author ties up a large number of loose ends. I felt that this was unnecessary and could well have been left to the reader's imagination.

Great book. Read it 10 years ago and have bought many copies as gifts for friends ever since - who also agreed.Highly recommend it.

Really good read. Had it years ago and lent it out and never had it back, so was please to get another copy to re-read

A well written novel that includes magic, crime, mystery and history, featuring prominent people of the age.I thoroughly enjoyed this story and would readily recommend it.

Great book great service