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Rating: 
Summary: Uh, "magical"?
Review: ...this is a tale involving drugs and prostitution. One ought not expect Pollyanna to appear in the dramatis personae.This is, indeed, a genre-breaker--certainly *not* a love story, certainly not (entirely) a mystery. The incessant exploration of what is real and what is illusion is what drives this wonderfully introspective tome ceaselessly forward. One is never quite certain who is deceiving whom. Most books fade from consciousness with nary a whimper. Not this one.
Rating: 
Summary: Superb story
Review: At the onset of this novel, Red meets Rosa, and promptly falls for her. The seduction begins with a simple magic trick -- and the deception inherent in magic becomes indicative of the year they spend together. With the death of Rosa, Red comes to find much of his girlfriend's life was an illusion. He commmences a journey to unfurl the mystery of Rosa, which takes him to Amsterdam's seedy Red Light district, and only creates more difficult to answer questions. It is difficult for him to locate information on Rosa, and what he discovers only makes matters more perplexing. Bedford is a gifted writer, and he masterfully tells this tale of smoke and mirrors. Most chapters begin with an diary entry written by Rosa, and they are exceptionally well written and provide incredible first person insight into Rosa's character and personal circumstances. Unlike other writers who use the same tone for multiple characters, Bedford skillfully creates very different voices for each of the characters in this novel. This story is a delicious combination of detective novel, love story, magic and brilliant writing. Satisfying and recommended.
Rating:
Summary: An exquisitely crafted murder mystery
Review: Boy meets girl. Girl moves in with boy the next day. Boy and girl live together until one year later, girl leaves boy. The twist here is that the boy (Red) is a magician and the girl (Rosa) turns up dead before he even knows she's left him. What happened here? And who was Rosa really? The first part of the book is engaging and we see snippits of Red and Rosa's life together in flashblacks, as well as Red's gradual discoveries that Rosa was not what she seemed. Red makes a sympathetic character, UNTIL we come to the second part of the book, where Red steps out of character and starts acting like a master detective (only for the sake of bringing the plot forward it seems). Red's actions are so unbelievable that the book turns nearly into a farce. Still, I read eagerly on, waiting for the payoff: what happened to Rosa? Some reviewers have noted that this book isn't easily forgettable, and I'd have to agree. Although I won't be keeping this one on my bookshelf, I did have an enjoyable time reading it.
Rating:
Summary: Superb story
Review: I loved this book! Unlike many which fade or disappear from memory shortly after finishing, this one will stay with you. You're hooked from the Prologue, and each chapter closing leaves you with more questions than answers. Yet, as the story progresses, all the loose ends are neatly tied up & the tragic twists and turns seem inevitable. Part mystery, part love story, part erotic thriller -- this is literary fiction at its best!
Rating:
Summary: There's a difference between magic and "romance"
Review: I normally don't respond to other people's review, but I have to here. Houdini Girl is not about magic and is not supposed to be a magical love story. It is a novel that makes a thoroughly inventive use of illusion and explores the deceit and secrets between two people who had completely different perceptions of each other. I found nothing offensive in the book and found it to be the ONLY book about a magician/illusionist that understood the concept of 20th century magic as entertainment. Bedford's insights into the obsession with dismembering women and rearranging women's bodies in the guise of entertainment and its correlation to the male obsession with sexually possessing and coveting women's bodies is one of the more original aspects of this fascinating book. It's the story of discovering the truth about what and who you thought you fell in love with and not a "love story" at all.
Rating:
Summary: Fantastic ! Suspenseful, smart, and funny.
Review: I read this book over a year ago and noticed it on my shelves again just recently, reminding me how great this book was. I have recommended this book to all my friends, and in one case, bought it for them. It's a mystery, yet not dumbed down. Ever since I've read it, I've thought it would make an excellent movie. I don't normally read mysteries and I don't know that this is a mystery book per se, but this is one of the most entertaining books I've read in some time. Highly recommended !!
Rating:
Summary: A fun, intriguing read.
Review: I strenuously disagree with the reader from Indianaoplis: The magic tricks that open nearly every chapter are certainly enchanting but they pale in comparison to the fascinating characters and compelling story. In fact, I found myself so involved with the major players that when Rosa's history finally becomes clear, I felt I owed her an apology for judging her harshly when I first met her. Then I reminded myself that she's just a character in a book. Even Merlin (the pet cat) has a firmly developed personality. I loved this book. In fact, I've given copies of The Houdinin Girl to quite a few of my friends. So far, they're all happy to have read it as well.
Rating:
Summary: A Haunting Mystery
Review: It is a somewhat hazardous task for a novelist to write about the nature of magic, deception and illusion, because the readers will definitely expect to be pleasantly deceived. Martyn Bedford's ambitious Houdini Girl is therefore the most anti-climactic novel of 1999, since it deals with the questions of deception and magic but desperately fails to conjure up any kind of wonder in the reader. There is a interesting subtext on how the mastery of magic is akin to male dreams of mastery over women in general, but it cannot make up for weaknesses in plot (ludicrous) and language (crude).
Rating:
Summary: An exquisitely crafted murder mystery
Review: Martyn Bedford's "The Houdini Girl" was on all the major book reviewers' recommended list last season. I can see why. On the surface, HG reads like a none too extraordinary murder mystery. The heroine gets bumped off real early. She leaves behind a grieving and befuddled lover who sleuths away to discover that she had led another life in secret whilst cohabitating with him. As he peels off the layers to unmask her real identity, we are thrown into a nightmarish world of sex abuse, drugs, prostitution, a make believe family history and a sordid past that made Rosa Kelly the damaged person she had become. Her love affair with magician Brendan Fletcher never had a chance. It was doomed from the start because she'd lost her innocence and was in no fit state to accept let alone give love. All in all, pretty unexceptional stuff, you might think, but what elevates HG above the more formularic efforts of others writing in the same genre is Bedford's craft in exquisitely blending the thriller with the human interest elements to produce a novel that is at once gripping, intelligent, touching and believable. His contrasting treatment of the illusionist's magic and Rosa's deliberate deception of Brandon is both poignant and painful. The premise for HG wasn't especially promising but the result is spectacular. The book reviewers were right. HG is a wonderfully entertaining novel you wouldn't want to miss.
Rating:
Summary: Book of the Year
Review: The Houdini Girl is definitely my book of the Year. It is a thriller with a murder, or at least an assisted involuntary death, it is also a love story in the Shakespearean mould with double identities confounding the course of love. From the beginning illusion is a theme, even the opening paragraph misleads. Bedford explores the difference between illusion and deceit in a witty, moving and tense novel that gathers pace like the train that the eponymous character leaves with such tragic affect. As the main character (Red, the master prestidigitator) explains, there is a difference between magic and lies which is defined by the relationship between the protagonists. A magician and his audience enter into a conspiracy to sustain an illusion, the magician tricks his audience, who nevertheless know that they are being tricked, therefore there is no lie. Bedford tricked me, too, with this tale. Martyn Bedford is a magician, I looked for the trick behind the illusion but there is none. He just really is that good.
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