Bluff - Softcover

Kardos, Michael

Softcover

ISBN 10: 080212965X ISBN 13: 9780802129659

Publisher: Mysterious Press, 2019

Synopsis

Razor-sharp and spellbindingly told, Bluff takes us deep inside the fraught and fascinating world of a modern magician who becomes obsessed with magic's dark twin―the underworld of the cardsharp.

"Hopelessly addictive." ―Megan Abbott, Edgar Award-winning author of You Will Know Me

"If you haven't read Kardos yet, Bluff is the perfect place to start!" ―Lisa Scottoline, bestselling author of Exposed

At twenty-seven, magician Natalie Webb is already a has-been. A card-trick prodigy, she took first place at the World of Magic competition at eighteen and has never again reached such heights. Shunned by the magic world after a disastrous liaison with an older magician, she now lives alone in a New Jersey apartment with her pigeons and a pile of overdue bills. In a desperate ploy for extra cash, she follows up on an old offer to write for a glossy magazine and pitches the editor a seductive topic: the art of cheating at cards. 

But when Natalie meets the perfect subject for her piece―a poker cheat who dazzles at sleight of hand―what begins as a journalistic gamble soon becomes a test of everything she thinks she knows about her talent, and herself. Natalie soon finds herself facing a dangerous proposition that could radically alter her fortune―to help pull off a $1.5 million magic trick that, if done successfully, no one will ever suspect happened. With Kardos raising the stakes chapter after chapter, Bluff is a breathtaking work of suspense from a writer at the top of his game.

About this title

About the Author

Michael Kardos is the Pushcart Prize-winning author of the novels The Three-Day Affair and Before He Finds Her and the story collection One Last Good Time. Originally from the Jersey Shore, he lives in Starkville, Mississippi, where he codirects the creative writing program at Mississippi State University.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Laypeople always assume that an elegant trick must have an equally elegant method. But one of the true secrets of magic is that this is rarely the case. And with sleight-of-hand the secret is never a mirror or harness or contraption but rather five- or ten- or twenty-thousand hours of practice. The artistry is in the execution, not the secret. It’s in learning to hide what ought to be in plain sight.

I could have told him right then how to do the Four Queens, magician’s oath be damned. But then he would know. He’d think: Oh. A vague disappointment, and then he’d be on to the next thing he wanted.

Better, always, to leave them full of wonder.

Edition details

• Publisher: Mysterious Press
• Publication date: 2019
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 080212965X
• ISBN 13: 9780802129659
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 288