The Warlock Effect: A highly entertaining, twisty adventure filled with magic, illusions and Cold War espionage

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This site is protected by reCAPTCHA Enterprise and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. Mr Aldous, editor of Illustrated, who has previous history with Louis, challenges him to prove his magic is ‘real’. I was reminded of the sadistic mind experiments the Nazis used, for which Louis, as a Jew, would have held a familiar dread.

We're at the end of 1952, and Louis Warlock is in the middle of a mind-reading trick his love of magic since his childhood makes very easy for him. A young German Jew fleeing the Nazis, Ludvik plays card tricks to lure English boys away from tormenting him. When he comes face to face with a nemesis whose cunning rivals his own, Louis will need to use every trick in the book or risk the most terrible consequences, both for the country and for himself.As another reviewer put it: "I didn't feel anything like as overwhelmed by this tricksiness as expected". Jeremy Dyson and Andy Nyman skillfully depict a shadowy world of magic and espionage in this gripping tale that is entertaining, heartfelt and as twisty as any artful stage magician's signature trick. Simply billing The Warlock Effect as an espionage thriller would be doing it a disservice: there's far more to take from it than that, as the action takes us across Europe and back, introducing a series of fascinating and complex characters along the way. You can make the case that when it comes to tradecraft, the actual day-to-day business of espionage, spies operate with a strict sense of ritual, just like magicians do.

Jane Seymour as mystic Solitaire, left, and Roger Moore as James Bond in 1973 film Live and Let Die. The story is interspersed with instructions on how to do various magic tricks (which you must not reveal).Fans of magic and mentalism will particularly enjoy it but it will have broad appeal to anyone who just likes a good old fashioned yarn.