Elephants in the Distance Book

Paul Galliard is a magician by training and heredity: his father died performing the Bullet Catch, an infamous trick that over the centuries has claimed the lives of more than a dozen magicians. A pragmatist, Paul confines his conjuring to commercials; he shows up often on TV screens, demonstrating the magical power of some brand of household cleanser.Then he gets a call. A producer wants to do a show highlighting his father's old cronies, those grizzled vets of the glory days of TV magic-acts. Their top-hats are moth-eaten, their rabbits have arthritis, but they're desperate for one last shot at the limelight. Paul would like to give it to them - these fellows all but raised him. But there's a catch - a Bullet Catch, to be precise. Either Paul does the trick that killed his father, or the show doesn't go on. Stashower works powerful magic of the literary kind . . . this is a model whodunit, expertly constructed and executed with real finesse - New York Times

Publishers Weekly

This neat, oddly oblique puzzle will please mystery fans and delight magic devotees. Paul Galliard, Ph.D. candidate in Civil War history and a part-time magician, earns a living acting in TV commercials. Thirty years ago, his headliner father Thomas died on a live TV magic show doing the ``bullet-catch'' stunt. Now, Paul's old mentor Josef Schneider has a fatal heart attack while performing at a children's party. When Paul suffers a mysterious seizure after inflating some balloons from Schneider's prop case, he has them tested and finds they've been doped. An odd fire in Paul's apartment destroys the evidence, another old friend of Paul's father dies in a freak accident at a TV rehearsal and Paul realizes someone's out to get the survivors of a WW II troupe of magician-spies. There's a third murder before Paul unlocks the puzzle during a TV special in which he re-creates the bullet catch. He also uncovers a 30-year-old mystery and this time the stunt really is death defying. This is great, light-handed fun from Edgar nominee Stashower ( The Adventure of the Ectoplasmic Man ). Literary Guild alternate. (Apr.)