"A novel"--Jacket.

"From the author of The Cellist of Sarajevo, an exciting new novel that uses the life and sudden death of Harry Houdini to weave a tale of magic, intrigue, and illusion"-- Provided by publisher. What is real and what is an illusion? Martin Strauss's fate seems forever tied to that of magician Harry Houdini. Strauss recounts Houdini's life-- but the retelling is through the damaged memory of the fan who killed him with a punch to the stomach in 1926. Can we trust what we hear? Believing Houdini to be alive, Strauss hopes to find his whereabouts even as he, himself, is being pursued by a cadre of conspirators out to muzzle him.