Rating: 
Summary: Dazzling
Review: Simply a thrilling, spellbinding and althogether wonderful read. It's part Saturday serial, part romance, part literary riff and a totally terrific debut.
Even the design - from jacket to sizzling color reproductions and handbills - makes it a treasure.
Grab it. Pour yourself a sherry and light the fireplace. Hold your calls and settle in. Presto! Bring on a sequel.
Rating:
Summary: Nothing Up His Sleeve...
Review: Except a really great story!!! I have been a lover of magic and wonder since my own Dad first made a quarter disappear! I loved the insight into a magicians world, as well as his mind. I loved the characters, the mystery, the love story, the humor, the time...I really loved it all. The story kept me turning the pages to see what was happening next, or if I was going to learn how to make a lion roar...and I did!I laughed, and I cried, and yes I was amazed! You've got the best seat in the house; so Enjoy The Show! Debbi
Rating: 
Summary: Couldn't get through it..............
Review: Based on all the 5 star reviews, I ordered this book for my husband, who is an avid reader.......two to three books per week. He has struggled with this one book for over two weeks, and finally last night, put it down........he got half way through it. He thought it dis-jointed and plodding. In the past ten years, I've seen him not finish a book twice. I made a mistake on this one.
Rating:
Summary: A terrific historical thriller
Review: Within minutes of picking up Carter Beats the Devil I was wrapped up in a world of misdirection and shadowy characters that is reminiscent of black and white adventure movies and Arthur Conan Doyle. Charles Carter is a tremendously accomplished illusionist in an era where emerging technology is slowly eroding the wonder he can elicit from an audience. A snappy comeback to a ridiculous question by a tabloid journalist forces Carter to go into hiding, and plunges him into an elaborate adventure involving the recent death of President Warren G. Harding. He is chased by Secret Service agents and a murderous competitor to the core of a conspiracy to keep a dreadful secret from the American public. The plot is twisty and involved without becoming confusing or gratutitous; Gold's use of language and craft with dialog is excellent and snappy, no small feat for a first-time novelist on a historical thriller. The events that unfold for Carter, both in his past and present, really get the pulse racing, and you'll find yourself anxiously turning page after page. I HIGHLY RECOMMEND THIS BOOK as simply well-crafted and great entertainment.
Rating:
Summary: Devilish fun!
Review: Carter Beats The Devil is Glen Gould's first novel and I for one can't wait to read his next. It is 1923 and the magician Charles Carter walks onto the stage to present his greatest show ever. In the audience is President Warren Harding who volunteers to take part in the magic act. Harding is made to vanish, but is eventually rescued from the stomach of a fierce Lion. Carter and Harding take their bows to enthusiastic audience applause. Two hours later Harding is dead. The secret service suspect that Carter was somehow involved in the death, though evidence is hard to come by. The novel explores both Carter's early career (how did he become such a great magician) and also his ongoing feud with the secret service as they investigate and harass him. At one and the same time this is a novel about what it is to be a magician (the 1920s were the golden age of stage magic), what it is to be a president, and what it is to be a scientist with a great invention that can change the world. It blends reality and fiction into a seamless presentation of what the 1920s might have been like if only things had been a little different. It is replete with magician's lore and brilliantly evokes the splendour and spectacle. And the ending will take your breath away.
Rating:
Summary: Rich and rewarding
Review: For the combination of lucid writing and ingenious storytelling, I would compare this to John Irving at his best. That is, if John Irving ever really did any research. Gold obviously delights in uncovering fascinating details and working them into his narrative. The result is like a perfectly designed puzzle. I can't recommend it highly enough.
Rating:
Summary: Something for everyone in this book
Review: I very much enjoyed this book, it has action, adventure, and it is historical fiction. For a first novel, it is excellent. Mr. Gold has the rare ability to make you feel a part of the action. I think this book would appeal to a wide audience as it has something for everyone, history, romance, action, and a bit of gore. I'll be looking forward to Glen David Gold's next work.
Rating:
Summary: Great novel -- amateur magicians take note!
Review: This novel neatly combines three passions for me: magic, the Jazz Age, and mystery novel. Couldn't put it down. If you enjoy magic this is a must.
Rating:
Summary: Watch the Pages Disappear
Review: On an uneventful night in 1923, President Warren G. Harding volunteers to participate in the final act of Carter the Great's magic show. Brief hours later, Harding mysteriously dies. Investigators believe Harding shared a secret with magician Carter just before his death, but Carter's not telling. In fact, Carter has disappeared. 'Carter Beats the Devil' can be summed up in one word: FUN! The setting is San Francisco in the 1920's, a time when the people of this country were in some ways innocent, less street-wise, and eager to believe in magic. Gold's book portrays an innocence that sadly has departed since Sept. 11, which makes the book one to hunger for even more. The author wonderfully juggles many themes: Love, ambition, childhood fears, family relationships, fame, good vs. evil, the Secret Service, and the advent of television. 'Carter' is funny, touching, adventurous, mysterious and suspenseful. Gold masterfully weaves all of these themes together into a very satisfying conclusion. Start reading and watch the pages disappear.
Rating:
Summary: A fabulous debut
Review: With his humorous, engaging debut novel, Gold does for the golden age of magic what Michael Chabon did for the pre-war comicbook era in "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay." Gold is not as masterful or complex a writer as Chabon, but give him time. "Carter" is a sprawling, romantic, heady depiction of the life and times of Carter the Great, illusionist. The story begins with the 1923 death of President Warren G. Harding, hours after his participation in a Carter illusion in which the president is dismembered by scimitars. The luckless, humorless, but dogged Agent Jack Griffin of the Secret Service distinctly noticed that the president had shed years during his stage appearance; he was spry and athletic and no longer seemed to be carrying the weight of the world. Hmm. Several misdirections, a housebroken lion and a few pages later, Carter has gotten the best of the Secret Service and the reader discovers that the scandal-plagued Harding had asked Carter: "If you knew of a great and terrible secret, would you for the good of the country expose it or bury it?" The narrative then drops back to the origin of Carter's interest in magic tricks during the historic San Francisco blizzard of 1897 when he and his brother are left alone in the house for days. The wonder and uneasiness of the unaccustomed freedom and unprecedented abandonment create a heightened emotional milieu for the boys' distraction in a book of magic found in their father's study. Their anxious activity leads to a demonstation for the half-mad gardener nominally in charge of them. The disastrous performance - a clash of psyches encompassing a range of misunderstandings from adult/child to privileged/impoverished and sane/insane - culminates in a bizarre act of brutality. Carter accomplishes his first dramatic escape and the whole episode ends in an anticlimactic homecoming almost more shocking than the gardener's visciousness. The emotional range of this chapter sets the stage for Carter's amazing ambition; his setbacks, self-doubt and luck, both good and bad. Gold's portrait is simultaneously intimate and larger than life. Nuance of feeling illuminates a life of grand gestures, tragedy, heroism, illusion and misdirection. As the haplessly misdirected Agent Griffin, consumed with suspicion of murder, digs damningly into Carter's history, the story segues between past and present, illuminating the romantic figure of the real-life Carter in loss, loneliness, and love while encompassing gypsy prophesies, pirates, a black-hearted villain, the dawning of the technological revolution, a mysterious and beautiful blind woman, and, of course, Harding's shadowy secret. Historical figures, like the Great Houdini, television's inventor Philo T. Farnsworth and the borax tycoon, Francis Smith, make crucial appearances in this tumultuous era as the golden age of magic flourishes, then is slowly eclipsed by the the newer illusions of moving pictures. Throughout, Carter's performances, always reaching for greater, more startling and astounding illusions, come to life on the page to amaze the reader. The illusionist's skill unfolds among the secrecy and jealousy of rivals and a tremendous amount of complicated equipment, depicted (so I'm told) with amazing accuracy. Emulating his protagonist, Gold develops his story with misdirection and sleight of hand, saving his best and most outlandish illusions for the grand finale. A fabulous debut.
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