William Lindsay Gresham Knihy

OUT NOW IN CINEMAS AND NOMINATED FOR FOUR OSCARS A cool, cruel, rediscovered classic of American noir adapted for cinemas by Guillermo del Toro, starring Bradley Cooper, Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara 'Read and shudder. And relish' Guardian 'A creepy, all-too-harrowing masterpiece' Washington Post Stanton Carlisle, employed as a carny at a travelling circus watches their freak-show geek - an abject alcoholic, the object of the voyeuristic crowd's gleeful disgust and derision - and wonders how a man could fall so low. There's no way in hell, he vows, that anything like that will ever happen to him. Unlike the tragic figure he sees before him, Stan is young, clever and ambitious and quick to learn from the other carnival acts. Initially teaming up with a beautiful but vulnerable woman as part of a double act in which he mesmerises her, Stan soon leaves his circus days behind him, becoming a successful spiritualist who exploits the weak and the wealthy. But even the very best con-men can meet their match.... With a new introduction from James Smythe, Nightmare Alley is a forgotten classic of Depression-era America: a brilliant, horrifying, compulsive journey into the true darkness of the human mind.

No magician has captured the imagination of the world as did Harry Houdini, his very name a byword for stunning, amazing escapes. In this authoritative biography, acclaimed author and noted psychic skeptic, William Lindsay Gresham details the life of the great man. The strands of Houdini's life are chronicled in rich detail; the stage illusions and their invention, his private life as he traveled the world, and Houdini's passion for exposing the frauds and scams of the 'psychic' world. Houdini's legendary illusions are explained and give a fascinating insight into their construction, created with simplicity that is the essence of true genius.