2007 Audie® Award Finalist - Fiction, Unabridged
Winner of the World Fantasy Award
In 1878, two young stage magicians clash in the dark during the course of a fraudulent séance. From this moment on, their lives become webs of deceit and revelation as they vie to outwit and expose each other.
Their rivalry will take them to the peaks of their careers, but with terrible consequences. In the course of pursuing each other's ruin, they will deploy all the deception their magician's craft can command—the highest misdirection and the darkest science. Blood will be spilled, but it will not be enough. In the end, their legacy will pass on for generations to descendants who must, for their sanity’s sake, untangle their puzzle.
Christopher Priest has published ten novels, three short story collections and a number of other books, including critical work, biographies, novelizations and children’s non-fiction. He has won the World Fantasy Award and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and in 2001 was awarded the Prix Utopia for lifetime achievement in fantastic literature. He is married to the writer Leigh Kennedy. They live in Hastings, England, with their two children.