From Publishers Weekly
Set in 1923 in New York City, this droll and captivating fantasy-part gothic mystery, part Who's Who of the Jazz Age, part Perils of Pauline-reads like a collaboration between Mary Roberts Rinehart and Dorothy Parker. Fancifully peopled with the ghost of Edgar Allen Poe, famous personages (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Harry Houdini, Damon Runyon) and a supporting cast of thousands, the action turns merrily around the Victorian obsession with spiritualism and its vestigial carryover into the Flapper Era. The narrative involves a series of Ripperlike murders that recreate the macabre stories of Poe. Touring the U.S. as advocates of spiritualism, Sir Arthur and Lady Jean Doyle are reunited with Harry and Bess Houdini, friends since the magician's 1920 tour of Great Britain, where he indulged his passion for debunking spirit mediums. Though both Conan Doyle and Houdini are drawn against their wills into the furor created by the bizarre killings, and though both wind up being stalked by the killer, they find their warm if oddly antipathetic camaraderie strained when Houdini ridicules a private seance given him by Lady Jean. Meanwhile, atop the list of suspects stands the enigmatic Isis, a sexy clairvoyant who also has suffered at the hands of the cavalier Houdini. Hjortsberg keeps matters moving briskly throughout this entertaining thriller, which, with its stellar characters and outlandish plot, could turn out to be his most popular novel since Falling Angel.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
Harry Houdini and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle join forces in this historical mystery with occult overtones. In his later years, Doyle has become a true believer in mediums who speak with the spirits of the dead. Houdini, as a master of illusion, takes pride in exposing and debunking such fraudulent people. Despite their opposing views, a mutual interest in the occult draws them together in a respectful friendship. When murders patterned after the tales of Edgar Allan Poe begin to occur, Houdini and Doyle are as fascinated as the rest of the citizens of New York. When they discover that all the victims have a distant relationship to Houdini, they decide to work together to solve the mystery. Nevermore is an enjoyable though sometimes gruesome adventure that is much enhanced by the author's use of the many details behind Houdini's amazing escapes and magic tricks. For popular collections.
--A.M.B. Amantia, Population Action International, Washington, Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
