RaveBookPageGold skillfully brings the reader onstage during a magician's performance, but, like a seasoned conjurer, never reveals how the tricks are done, dazzling instead with descriptions of the feats themselves. Magicians at the time were as much technicians as skilled performers, and Gold gives tantalizing glimpses of the complex mechanisms that Carter uses in his extravaganza. Gold's story is even more astonishing because Carter himself is a historical figure … Carter Beats the Devil is a wondrous work. From its bravura beginning to its riveting climax, Gold's novel defies the reader to perform the trick of putting the book down.