(Nonfiction; Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1986)
Ricky Jay is perhaps the world’s foremost living magician. He isn’t to be found onstage with lions, or suspending himself high over Las Vegas; he’s a sleight-of-hand artist of the highest order, the sort who takes a ten-dollar note from your hand—after you’ve torn off a small, identifying corner—and returns you a lemon and a paring knife so you can cut open the fruit to find the citrus-soaked note inside. Jay is also a scholar of the history of the arts of illusion, and he is said to know more about the guild of mysterious and magical performers than anyone else alive today.
