Rating: 
Summary: A swash-buckling page-turner!
Review: Fresh off my book club's latest exercise in plodding through mind-numbingly boring prose, (sorry, guys!) _Carter Beats the Devil_ was a true treat. This isn't a literary masterpiece, but it is a darn entertaining example of historical fiction. Parts of the plot do get a little confusing, but the overall story is engaging, and the historical details are just interesting enough to resuce this book from the pitfalls of true "trash fiction". If you are looking for a good read, this definitely qualifies. If you want to find the meaning of life, get serious: you are obviously not going to find it in a book with color illustrations! Gold's prose may not dazzle, but his story-telling skills are solid. And coming from me, this is high praise, indeed.
Rating: 
Summary: Good Not Great
Review: When I read the first chapter of the book I thought I was really going to experience something special. I liked the writing and the way the author hinted at an intriguing plot. However, rest of the book couldn't quite measure up to these expectations. The storyline became very linear (and predictable), the writing was rather flat and all of the characters were one-dimensional. At the end I was left with a sense of disappointment rather than a sense of satisfaction.
Rating:
Summary: Four stars
Review: This book was a joy to read. Yes, at times the story was farfetched, but always the charachters and their motivations rang true. Read the positive reviews. They are right on target.
Rating: 
Summary: Slick Marketing, Poor Writing
Review: Hyperion's marketing department is brilliant. The same cannot be said for the actual text of the novel. Don't be fooled by the very appealing cover artwork and full color reproductions of vintage posters included at the beginning of each chapter. Despite Gold's apparently extensive research into the real Charles Carter and into the era, his novel lacks insight into either. Amazingly boring in stretches for a novel about a magician. The only real magic about this novel is that it became a bestseller.
Rating: 
Summary: Critical Acclaim Misleading!
Review: Even with the vast amount of historical and biographical sources Gold consulted for this novel, it is surprisingly flat. At the end of the novel, the reader realizes that Gold has failed to provide any real motivation or personality for his major characters. It's not that it's terrible, it's just neither particularly entertaining nor enlightening. Given the subject matter of magic in the early part of the 20th century, shouldn't Gold have come up with something more interesting and surprising? It almost amazes me how boring this book can be at times. Perhaps the biography of the real Charles Carter used by Gold in writing this novel would be a better read. I'm afraid that readers of this novel have been duped by positive press.
Rating:
Summary: Critical Acclaim Misleading!
Review: Even with the vast amount of historical and autobiographical sources Gold consulted for this novel, it is surprisingly flat. At the end of the novel, the reader realizes that Gold has failed to provide any real motivation or personality for his major characters. It's not that it's terrible, it's just neither particularly entertaining nor enlightening. Given the subject matter of magic in the early part of the 20th century, shouldn't Gold have come up with something more interesting and surprising? It almost amazes me how boring this book can be at times. Perhaps the autobiography of the real Charles Carter used by Gold in writing this novel would be a better read. I'm afraid that readers of this novel have been duped by positive press.
Rating:
Summary: No Illusion
Review: Let me begin by saying this is a very entertaining book that kept me reading right up to the end. Having read both books, I'd say comparisons some draw to Michael Chabon's "Adventures of Kavalier & Klay" are apt and while I suggest reading both, Gold's book is better in that it is mercifully shorter and ventures a little less into the soap opera world of love triangles and such. You can't exactly finish "Carter" in one night, but the story doesn't lag a whole lot. And because no book is perfect, let me go briefly into some problems I had. First, I really thought Gold glossed over the relationship between Carter and his first wife. It seemed like they got married and then the next time we see her, she's dead. I suppose the author didn't want to dwell on that to keep the book shorter and moving along, but since her death affected Carter a lot, it would have been nice to sell why he loved her so much a little more. Maybe it's just me, but I didn't care about the Harding assassination subplot at all. The fight to get the rights/cover-up to television provided the necessary motivation for the Secret Service to try rubbing Carter out, so his involvement in the "assassination" seemed extraneous. Really no one in the book except Agent Griffin appears to care whether Carter had a hand in bumping off Harding, so unless it was historical fact, then the book could have been written without it. Other than Carter, a lot of the other characters had a lot of depth. There's the fussy gay brother, the bumbling Agent Griffin, the macho Secret Service goons, and Mysterioso who comes off as a more evil Snidely Whiplash. Phoebe and Borax are really the only other more complicated characters in the book. By the way, did anyone else envision Frasier and Niles Crane whenever Carter and his brother were talking? Since the book takes place in the 1920s, I can't vouch for its authenticity. I always wonder how those people who claim it's so realistic actually know. Either they have to be very old or they did a lot of research on the subject. But there were no glaring errors like in a certain recent Pulitzer Prize-winning novel I won't name. Anyway, "Carter Beats the Devil" is a fun book with a lot of twists and turns. It's not a serious, philosophical book, but an engaging read with adventure, romance, and mystery, really everything a casual reader can ask for. I highly recommend giving it a look.
Rating:
Summary: Good, but I couldn't give it 5 stars
Review: I agreed with portions of boh the reviews which praised this book to the high heavens and those who criticized it as well. My primary criticisms were twofold: First, that the book was just too busy--too many subplots, too many characters, and in general too much of everything crammed into one novel. In fact I have noticed that this is a frequently recurring flaw with first-time novelists: just too much going on; they can't reign themselves in. I also felt that "Act Two" of the novel--spanning some 200 pages--was far less interesting (albeit busy)than the first and third "Acts" and the novel suffered for that as well. I also agreed with one reviewer that the whole business about the Secret Service agents wanting to kill Carter was rather baffling. Was it standard operating procedure for these agents to want to kill Presidential assassinaton suspects on sight. Was I missing something? Having said all that, I still felt that the novel was imaginative, well researched, and, for the most part, quite entertaining. I would recommend it.
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent use of magical illusion to create a story!
Review: What a fun, interesting book!
I don't care for magic, and I'm not too into historical fiction, but this story just captivated me. I enjoyed the story's narrative arc and relished diving back into it each night after work. After filling up with mush from Grisham and Turow and King, its nice to read a new (for me, anyway) voice and to fall under Carter's spell . . . .
Rating:
Summary: History, Mystery & Magic
Review: Glen David Gold has woven a seductive and very entertaining tale which uses fact (often stretched to the limit and just as often totally skewed, but delightfully so) mingled skillfully with fiction. Its protagonist, the self-proclaimed Carter the Great, was a real-life magician who entertained during Vaudeville's Golden Age. The world of Vaudevillian stage magic,including its often eccentric cast of characters and dazzling effects, is created in rich detail and provides a backdrop which contrasts with the often lonely and melancholy life of Mr. Carter himself. We see the magician grow from a curious child to a clever and resourceful adult; we watch his career take off due to his creative and spectacular use of magic to entertain and to allow his audience to escape from the dull world of reality. This escape is as much for Carter's benefit as for his audience, and while everyone knows the "magic" is but an illusion, they joyfully and willingly enter into the deception. Carter becomes embroiled in the mystery revolving around the death of President Warren G. Harding and thus he becomes a shadowy and elusive fugitive of sorts, playing cat-and-mouse with the Secret Service (which consists of an awfully villanous cast of characters of its own). Through an imaginative blending of historical fact and pure whimsy, Gold manages to weave a tale that is absolutely and purely entertaining. His Carter is a man of depth, tortured by guilt, who searches for inner peace and who can find real happiness when he is on the stage, creating a world of awe inspiring illusion for his audiences. The plot moves fairly well and even with all the twists and turns, it never became confusing for me. Pay careful attention, though, or in the maze of details you may neglect to pick up on something important. Allow yourself to enter this magic world. Suspend your disbelief and let your imagination take flight. Go with Mr. Carter and let him amaze you.
| 
