The Making of America's First Superhero - The Secret Life of Houdini

Magic is fun and nice,Houdini give them what they wanted from him,but people never satisfied,that killed him.reading about the fraudulent spiritualist,make me sick,we are vulnerable when we lost a love one's,we will see them again,love never die,that keeps me not to be afraid of death,ha,ha, my husband told me my mother is here before he die,my mother in law the same,my mother was so happy,there is not reason not to believe it,love is very strong.like the book.Thelma

This book had the potential of being something great. A real full study into Houdini's live was more than over due. The research appeared to be there. The authors had talked to enough people who could give them the insights that they were looking for, but when it all came together is when it all came apart. That is not to say that there is not enough information, or that the work behind the book was done poorly. But what it means is that this book needed an editor. Was it rushed for some type of deadline? Did the two authors work together at all in this project? The story jumps all over the place and the further into the book you go the more jumbled it becomes.

There was a lot of great information, some good insight into Houdini's life, solid questions being asked to keep the discussion going, but when you have to go through a major mess to get anything worthwhile it really makes it hard to enjoy this book.

Now if they decided to actually get an editor and put it all back together than this could really be a great book.

This is one of the most detailed and interesting biographies I have read. The down side is that it is extremely long and not what I would consider to be an easy/fast read. Therefore, approach it with caution. If you think it is something you are interested in and you are willing to put in the time, go for it!

Great information about Houdini, well researched. However horribly written. The author would go down rabbit trails never finishing many stories. Would jump stories from one paragraph to the next, skip in time forwards and backwards, start one idea then talk about something else, even say things that made no sense at all.

This book delighted me and disappointed me. It delighted me because of all the rich details it gives about Houdini's career. He was a far more versatile and complex man than I had ever imagined, and the physical control he had over his body would have put any yogi to shame. Although the details sometimes get out of control, for the most part I couldn't put this book down. But, alas, three faults bugged me: 1. The authors provide no analysis of the man, they merely tell us what he said and did. Many of his actions cry out for interpretation and explanation, but the authors--if they say anything--speak in generalities. How does Houdini compare to other magicians and escape artists? (For instance, how good was his brother Hardeen compared to Houdini?) What are the tricks that still baffle magicians today? What medical explanation is there for his apparent ability to slow down his breathing and heart rate to the point where he would appear to be dead--and could survive in an airtight coffin for an hour and a half when the medical experts said he'd be dead in minutes? 2. The authors are unwilling (or unable) to look critically at Houdini. His statements and actions lead me to believe he was an egomaniac, desperate for attention, viciously defensive, suffering from a constant sense of inadequacy. But the authors blind themselves to these traits and assure the reader he did it all for the sake of keeping a promise to his dead father. Houdini is always praised, never criticized, by the authors. (For instance, for all their comprehensive detail, the authors somehow manage to leave out the fact (that I saw in a PBS documentary) that Houdini had a mordid curiosity--desiring to gaze upon the bodies of those who had suffered a gruesome death.) 3. The authors pathetically fall for conspiracy theories when it comes to explaining Houdini's demise. Were there lots of people who wished Houdini dead? Yes. Is there any evidence he was murdered? No. Just from the information the author's provide (which has a lot of holes in it), it is obvious that Houdini died from complications of a burst appendix. Surgery on Houdini pretty much proves this. As in science, the simplest explanation is to be prefered.

Storyline would often weave back and forth in history trying to follow a particular theme. So it was difficult to follow at times. Many interesting assertions but often lost in the minutiae of background detail.

Scope creep is when your perspective keeps creeping out further and further. The research is vast and the writing style is easy to digest, yet the book has no central nexus. It covers too many events and avenues of Houdini's life. Plus, we were all sold on this book because of the spy angle; the support is weak at best and leaves you remembering your college philosophy class: "corraltion does not mean causation." Lots of A + B might equal C, maybe, kind of logic is used.

The book isn't a bad read, but towards the end, I found myself skipping entire chapters out of boredom and frustration with the lack of focus. Shave two hundred pages out of the text and bring in the focus to one or two major avenues of Houdini, and I'd have loved it.

This book reads like a movie script. No biography worth it's salt should be published without some verification of sources, no matter how many documents were reviewed. Particularly bothersome to me was the invented dialogue; when I read a biography, I'm looking for facts, not dramatized conversations that probably never happened. This is a novel, in my opinion, not a biography.

The only flaw in this biography of this fascinating man is how rich it is in details, many of which are not really all that important a century later. I have been interested in Houdini since I was eight or nine, sixty years ago, but it took me a long time to get done with this volume. Still, it held my interest all the way, the photos are wonderful, and the speculation that Houdini's fatal injury may have been intended by his enemies instead of accidental actually seems plausible. I knew Houdini had spent years at the end of his career exposing psychic frauds, and since I was a member of a spiritualist church in the 1970's for three years, and took its mediumship classes, I wanted to know the details of all that controversy from the 1920's. My classes had nothing to do with the kind of séance offered back in Houdini's day, which occurred in darkened rooms and featured "spirits" speaking through trumpets and rapping on tables and producing ectoplasm. By the '70's church-based mediums sat in lighted rooms and wherever the information originated, it was all the "customers" got, no tricks. One could believe the source was a deceased relative or friend or guide, or not. We were allowed to charge money but I never did. We couldn't prove the information was supernatural, and we did not research our clients ahead of their readings in order to impress them with information they did not think we knew. But in Houdini's time, spiritualistic mediums were fakers who charged fees and relied on magic tricks, secret codes from allies, and prior research to fool the customers. What I learned from this section of the book was that millions of dollars were involved in that "business" and that even people sincerely believing in the ability of certain people to commune with the dead would often cooperate with fraud "to help the spirits out." The first three-fourths of the book will be more interesting to the readers who want to know how and why Houdini became one of the most famous people on earth due to his amazing escapes and magic illusions. Few secrets of his are revealed, but enough of them are described so the reader understands Houdini's amazing creativity, intellect, drive and hard work. He emerges from the past as a fully realized human, with flaws and virtues, and the latter apparently outweighing the former. I doubt that any better treatment of Houdini's life is possible.

The book never proved the suggestion about Houdini being a spy to myself,still this is a great book. I particularly enjoyed the section where Houdini began exposing phony mediums who were milking clients of money and promoting confusion. A lot of people might suspect a medium being phony but Houdini not only exposed them but showed how the mediums' worked their shows from a technical aspect. Houdini stated he never met a psychic or medium whom he couldn't explain or expose. He seemed to especially go after mediums who charged money and therefore were defrauding people by giving false hopes.
So how did Houdini do all of his magic-through technique,professional skill,and being in damn good shape. The authors tell of him often visiting YMCA's etc. and running on an indoor track. Houdini's athletic skills are often overlooked and undoubtedly the stunts he was doing were extremely dangerous and without proper conditioning would have no doubt been fatal.By his late 40's he is pretty much exhausted!Houdini as represented by this book is aware that he is on the top of the food chain in regard to magicians and continually challenges himself to stay there. Never seemed to want to rest on his laurels,his library alone rivals any private collection and some smaller public libraries. As a perfectionist and an exposer of frauds he undoubtedly made alot of enemies and the authors suggest that the punches to the stomach that caused his death may have been unwelcome studied death punches delivered by assasins affiliated with some mediums whose careers were ended by a Houdini expose'.
I enjoyed this "nuts and bolts" bio on Houdini,the authors have done a great job.Houdini was a great magician so if he was as good a spy as he was a magician probably we could never find out completely anyway. There was also a lot of info in regard to his wife Bess-Was Houdini in fact even married to her?-she really had a rough time after he died because Houdini's overpowering personality shadowed everything. She seemed so fragile and vulnerable after Houdini's exit even going so far as to become involved with a medium, Arthur Ford,and being used as a prop for his shows. I also liked the way the authors' presented Houdini's personality,he definitely had a detachment to wordly affairs that no doubt helped him keep his sanity. He comes off as a philosopher who made a living by being a magician.

In this comprehensive and thoroughly researched biography of Harry Houdini we are introduced to one of the most complex and sensational entertainers of the early part of the 20th century. Born Erik Weisz to a poor Jewish family in 1887 Budapest, they migrated to Minneapolis in the 1890's where his father eked out a living as a Rabbi and Talmud teacher. From a young age Erik discovered a fascination for locks and other contraptions and the skill to escape from them which lead him along his career path from itinerant escapologist; magician; aviator film maker and finally campaigner against "fraudulent mediums" and spiritualists. Each of his career changes would warrant a book in themselves and this is a tome of a book packed with details of his various ingenious escapes ; his dangerous exploits both on and off the stage; his work as an aviator and a spy for British and American intelligence whilst touring Germany and Russia; and his sometimes fractious relationships with other magicians and performers. Often turning friends into enemies and then vice versa. He even attacked Robert-Houdin, whose name he had taken in a book on him for faking many of his tricks whilst maintaining his continued admiration for him.

Houdini was a showman, a raconteur and someone known to bear a grudge and used his influence within magician's circles to lambast others who he felt were either frauds or plagiarisers of his inventions within his profession. However he was clearly out of his depth when he took on the likes of Conan Doyle, previously a friend through their shared interest in seances and medium ship when Houdini exposed Lady Doyle, a famous psychic and medium as a fraud starting off a feud that was to last for years and steering Houdini into the direction where he saw it as a religious duty to expose fraud in that rather frightening and sinister world. And no one were more sinister than the Crandons, Dr and Mina aka Margery,a celebrity medium known expelling ectoplasm from her vulva of all places, who galvanised the entire Spiritualist community against Houdini's denunciations.

It seems that none of Houdini's exploits were as dangerous as taking on this world which the authors characterise as corrupt, exploitative, and sexually perverse, with the Crandon couple as a veritable evil pair. Conan Doyle is depicted as a sad credulous dupe who seemed to have lost hie powers of deduction to what Houdini described as "religious mania". It seemed that the Crandon's and their followers would stoop to nothing in attacking Houdini including racial abuse via the spirit world and predictions of his death.

For me this was the most fascinating part of book. For others it could be the detailed descriptions of his escapes from prisons around Europe, after he would challenge prison authorities to imprison him in the impregnable cells. Or his work as an illusionist.

My two criticisms of the book are that it was somewhat over descriptive and fairly spare on details about his long marriage with Bess Houdini, which was not always so happy but far from loveless; his numerous affairs including with the widow of his friend the author Jack London, Charmaine London, and the sometimes difficult relationships with his siblings and their families. Secondly the conclusion of the book is slightly disappointing. It hints strongly at Houdini being murdered by the Spiritualists even suggesting a level of complicity from Conan Doyle and his wife( Houdini famously described him as more Dr Watson the Sherlock Holmes).

Unfortunately there is only circumstantial evidence for this and no one is precisely sure what eventually did kill Houdini at the age of 52. However as an entertaining and in depth account of his strange life I doubt that this volume could be bettered.

I came to this book with a very limited knowledge of Houdini - magician, escape artist and his premature death - hence much of what I read here was new to me. Compared to other historical biographies this volume comes up a little short. There are gaps in the history, the narrative becomes repetitive - how many escapes can one read about? - and there is plenty of conjecture. For instance was Houdini an Allied spy prior to World War I? - A premise that is not as far fetched nor as interesting as you may initially think.

But to give credit where credit is due, the authors have researched most if not all of the written material available - letters, journals, newspapers - and this may be as detailed as we'll get into the life and times of Erich Weiss, aka Harry Houdini, whose livelihood -obviously - was based on secrets. So convention aside I learned plenty from this book.

Houdini was a tireless, self-promoting, perfectionist when it came to his act and reputation and was seemingly shackled, bound, tied up and stuck inside a box night after night here in North America and in Europe - to escape again and again - for years.

As if that wasn't enough he was also locked into prison cells; tossed off of bridges bound, handcuffed and usually tied to a heavy weight; or hung upside down in straitjackets above crowds; always successfully escaping. These escapades and some secrets are chronicled in detail here in this book.

Houdini was also an early aviation enthusiast and the first man to fly a plane in Australia and at the end of his career became the bane of all spiritualists, exposing many of them as frauds. This involved him in very public feuds with the likes of Arthur Conan Doyle, author of the Sherlock Holmes stories and married to a "spiritualist". This last chapter in Houdini's life is fascinating and of which I knew very little about. One reads this finale book rooting for Houdini just as much as during his "escapes".

Although not a "conventional" biography - Houdini is not a "conventional" subject - I'd still recommend this book, even with its faults I found it entertaining, engaging, and informative.

The subtitle "The making of America's first superhero" really doesn't hold up very well. I would say George Washington or Daniel Boone fit that bill long before Houdini was born and a few others probably could be named as well. The authors also pursue a questionable line of research when they try to put Houdini in the position of master spy with very little research to back it up; mainly supposition and conjecture derived from a few sources. I guess they were trying to add a bit more spice to a figure who has had more than a few biographies written about him, but I didn't find all the "bells and whistles" necessary to enjoy this well-written look at one of the few individuals whose name has become part of our lexicon. Houdini's life is a marvelous combination of hard work and ego; in his quest to be famous he achieved a kind of immortality, his life filled with all the human failings of hubris and weakness, but he was always supplemented by a tremendous will to overcome whatever he was confronted with. .The later chapters, dealing with Houdini's battles with spiritualists, like Margery, are particularly telling. These attacks on spiritualists, who seemed to have really earned his enmity by having the temerity to try to trick the master of deception, are fascinating examples of how Houdini was able to combine his personal feelings with commerce as he was able to tour and lecture on their fraudulent practices. These chapters are truly the most intriguing, as the gradual decay of Houdini's friendship with Arthur Conan Doyle is mixed with Houdini's valiant attempt to enlighten people to the deceit of the spiritualist movement. Once again the author's attempt to "gild the lily" by suggesting Houdini was killed as a payback from the "spiritualist movement" with little evidence. It's not that I don't believe the possibilities of this "assassination" or the book's earlier contentions of Houdini's "spying" but I would expect them to be better supported by evidence before giving them as much credence as this book does. Despite these attempts to add another dimension to Houdini's biography, the book still stands as a valiant effort to bring Houdini's life and legend to a new generation.

The Secret Life of Houdini is the most exhaustive look at Harry Houdini's career to date. The authors do a terrific job of covering Houdini's early life including growing up in poverty when his father a rabbi was ousted by his own followers for being too old fashioned. Born Erlich Weiss, Harry Houdini was a distant relative of another great European magician. Houdini's fascination with magic began when his father took him to a performance as a child. Houdini quickly became adept at a number of skills but his most important was his ability as an acrobat and escape artist--this brought him his fame and fortune.

The authors unearth a number of fascinating and previously unknown facts about Houdini. While I had known about his crusade against the spiritualist movement (he himself had practiced it briefly to survive as an entertainer and regreted it eventually apologizing to those that he had duped) and his talents as an inventor, I was completely unaware that he had been recruited as to "spy" on Germany and other countries while he was touring. While I found the idea a bit farfetched at first, the authors do provide some compelling evidence to suggest that Houdini did provide information to British and U.S. intelligence in various countries. I wouldn't go so far as to call him a spy but he certainly did what he would consider his patriotic duty.

The book has plenty of illustrations including rare photos, handbills, posters and other items from a variety of collections including magician David Copperfield's extensive collection of Houdini memorabilia. This is a well researched and terrifically entertaining book with a breezy prose style.

Highly recommend for fans of Houdini, those interested in magic and entertainment from the 19th and early 20th century.

This book was recommended to me by a private investigator I once met. I had assumed that it will include many tricks the worlds greatest escape artist had in his pocket. From this manner I was wrong.

The book is a biography of Eric Weiss which became Harry Houdini. It states how a son of a Jewish family became the worlds greatest magician.
The first part of the book is very interesting regarding what made him so great. Houdini spent hours of practicing and learning how to makes these tricks people refers as magic. His escape capabilities from locks are a proof of hard work and knowledge.
The second part of the book though concentrates on his crusade to expose the spiritual seance and fortune tellers. I didn't really understand why he was so dedicated to do it. One paragraph mentions that this rival made his show tickets sell better. If it didn't get him to his death I would have eliminated this part of the book.

As a total its a nice biography of a person which became the world best known magician.

Though this book glosses over Houdini's youth, it quite intensively goes over his adult life, literally month by month in many instances. You won't find the secrets to Houdini's tricks here, but you will discover much about the man himself. The authors here seem to be pushing the possibility Houdini worked with U.S. and British intelligence services in gathering information in foreign lands and possibly even about domestic criminals, which all seems quite likely considering the information promoted in this book and the fact Houdini didn't seem to hide the fact he worked as sort of a spy sometimes. This book also seems to lean toward the possibility Houdini was murdered by Spiritualists, a group he publically and privately attacked numerous, numerous times; this idea I find a little harder to digest, but it's not impossible. Actually, the section of this book dealing with Houdini's taking on the Spiritualist frauds I found the most interesting.

I cannot even elaborate on this for want of minutely detailing the pages of this book in praise. The amount of Houdini accounts that I have read do not collectively compare to the trustworthy nature that Sloman and Kalush put forth in this biography. In my personal opinion, I detect professionalism and 'thorough' research emanating from the pages of this absolutely phenomenal telling of the amazing soul/spy/illusionist/investigator/inventor. Like so many other mysterious figures of our past, Houdini is attached to a variety of misconceptions and ideas that finally obtain some justice in this book.

An alluring behind-the-scenes look is presented into Houdini's many professions, personal life, the other areas so often untouched when speaking of Houdini [i.e., personal beliefs, connections to certain people, his incredible heart, et al.], as well as a fantastic posthumous recap with Beatrice and his relatives.

This biography is one of my top five favorite pieces of literature. A sacred treasure on my shelf.

i knew next to nothing about harry houdini (the erstwhile erich weiss) before reading this book. after reading it, i felt like i'd know houdini my entire life. such is the incredible detail the authors injected into the book.

more than anything, i came away from the reading with a profound admiration for the man behind the magic. he may very well be the most dynamic personality of the first quarter of the 19th century. while he's primarily known as an escape artist (and perhaps appropriately so), houdini also had a large role in ushering in the age of flight and film, among many other things. it's fascinating to read about his devotion to his craft, inventing new escapes, his absolute mastery of publicity, his keen understanding of human nature, and the fierce protectiveness of his creations (it wasn't unusual for houdini to expose and humiliate those who tried to copy his acts)-- except in the case of a south african magician who asked houdini for permission to perform the water escape. and here we see the generous side of the man. houdini glady gave the magician permission simply because the magician credited houdini with the trick and and appropriately asked for the rights. other accounts of his generosity, particularly with children and the poor, are plenty.

by far the most fascinating and informative portion of the book comes in the last 200 pages in which the authors relate houdini's 'friendship' with sir arthur conan doyle, and houdini's compulsive battle to expose fraudulent mediums, particularly the notorious bostonian medium by the name of'margery.' it's utterly compelling reading. the houdini vs. margery/condon/bird/doyle chapters are so wonderful that i spent 2.5 hours straight reading it. furthermore, houdini's 'own secret service'(a collection of fellow magicians, newspaper people, reporters, and extended family members employed for the sheer purpose of exposing fraudulent mediums) is the kind of stuff that, i'm sure, we'll see on the silver screen before too long. it's simply too good a story to NOT be immortalized on celluoid.

yes, it's a long book (550+ pages), but it reads very easily. never once did i find myself looking down at the pages wondering how much i'd read that night. simply put, it's a great and wonderful story. you'll come away wondering how such a man came to be: brilliant, dogged, generous, charitable, mystifying, determined, but ultimately human (the authors don't avoid his shortcomings and character flaws). it's one of those rare books that draws the reader in and makes him or her lose sense of time and place, much like the magician himself. and that's about the best compliment i can give it.

Reading the introduction to "The Secret Life of Houdini" made it sound like a must read. The authors describe it as "the first Houdini biography of the new digital age." They fed a myriad of magic documents into a text-searchable database that offers tens of thousands of references to Houdini. They discovered a closet full of scrapbooks and materials on spiritual medium and Houdini nemesis Margery and an uncensored diary of the Head of Scotland Yard's Special Branch that references Houdini. The bombshell of their massive work (and, no doubt, source of the title) is that Houdini was a spy who worked for the Secret Service and Scotland Yard. After reading through the 560 pages, all that wealth of data did not support the exciting claims.

"Secret Life" is a very thorough account of the life of Houdini, although the majority of the book would not be considered "secret." It documents Ehrich Weiss's humble roots, his beginnings as an escape artist, his performances across the United States and Europe, the quest to create and perfect new magic acts, the pursuit of imitators, his work as an author and magic historian, his accomplishments in aviation, his patriotism and devotion to his mother, and his fight against corrupt spiritualists. These subjects are part of Houdini's public life, though.

As for the "secret life" of Houdini, the authors resort to speculation and assumption. The Secret Service chief had used entertainers before in his intelligence work setting a precedent for using Houdini (68-70). Houdini was on the West Coast the same time the Secret Service was there to investigate fake silver dollars (83). Houdini exchanged a naturalized passport for a native born passport to avoid German suspicion while he was there to, among other things, send reports to Scotland Yard chief William Melville on such things as the Krupp munitions factory he visited (111-16). Houdini "in all likelihood" was in the crowd of the Kaiser after a display of Germany's military might. The uncensored diary of Melville produced the one eye-opening entry offered in this book: "no word yet from HH" (229). The authors think he met with Secret Service chief John Wilkie during a ten-day visit to New York (126). Houdini was on the same ship as the Captain of Military Intelligence Robert Goelet (309) and was in Texas during his aviator period the same time the First Areo Squadron met in San Antonio (319). He played Secret Service characters in his films (354) and created his own secret service and fact-gathering force in his pursuit to take down phony mediums. He was asked in court if a man, who happened to be a former Secret Service operative, was a member of the Society of American Magicians. Two sisters claimed that Houdini told them he was a Prohibition rum-runner for the government which was "confirmed" by another source who got his information from the same ladies (is getting information from the same source considered "confirmation"?) (438). These examples make up the authors' case that Houdini was a spy. A lot of coincidences? Yes. But, I don't think it is enough on which to base a 560-page book.

The wealth of sources on Margery produced a lengthy and drawn-out section on Spiritualism with some nasty details regarding her seances. The authors include some interesting speculation that Houdini's death was caused by revenge-minded Spiritualists, but no concrete evidence is provided. There is no "wow" moment. The book is incredibly well-researched to the point that the sources are so numerous they were put on a website rather than included in the book. The writing style, for the most part, makes for an enjoyable read; however, I did not like the way they started some of the sections. The chapters are divided into many sections and sometimes they began a section with descriptions and pronouns giving it a mysterious quality. For example, in one section the reader is made to think Houdini was attacked in his home (only pronouns were used) only for it to be revealed that it was one of his brothers. This "mysterious" style was done enough to become annoying. Also, they explain their style as turning "facts into dialogue." The first part of chapter one describing Houdini being buried alive is written in a way that tries to get into Houdini's head. I normally do not like authors trying to read minds in history books, but thought it would be intriguing in this case. Alas, they do not do this again. In sum, the book is a wealth of information on Houdini, but it does not live up to the hyped-up title and introduction.

I've never had much interest in magicians, but Harry Houdini is a name that is absolutely legendary, even if you don't know much about him. This book details his life, from his humble beginnings as Ehrich Weiss, the son of a rabbi, to an international celebrity. The authors are very thorough, and cover in detail even the earliest incidents that show he had a talent for magic and picking locks. I found this early part of his life, his struggles, and his early fame to be fascinating, but his forays into flying (he was the first person to achieve sustained flight in Australia) and the movies were rather dull in comparison. Especially interesting, however, were his conflicts with the Spiritualists, which occupies about of the last quarter of the book. His expose`s of phony mediums were especially entertaining, and his friendship (and subsequent falling-out) with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (author of the Sherlock Holmes stories) over the issue were enlightening. It was interesting that Doyle (among MANY others) actually thought Houdini had extraordinary or special powers that enabled him to perform his stunts.

Like many other reviewers I, too, would have preferred that all the references and citations had been included in this book, but truly the story is longer than it appears when looking at it, and I wasn't troubled by that omission. I was also surprised that the issue over Houdini's possible spying activities wasn't more prominent in the book, as the publicity (I heard about the book from a radio interview) would have suggested. To me, it sounded plausible enough, but I knew so little about him to begin with that I simply wasn't bothered as someone more knowledgeable about him may have been.

Overall, I was very pleased with this book and enjoyed it a great deal, and gained a great admiration for Houdini and his many accomplishments and the hero that he was. I can strongly recommend it, even to those without a particular interest in magic.

...without thinking of this book.

I am not a "Houdiniphile." I really knew very little about him other than the fact that he was perhaps the greatest escape artist of all time. I knew how he died. (Or at least, I knew the generally-accepted theory as to how he died.) And I knew there was something about seances and his promise to send a message "from the other side" ---IF he could.

What I did not know, was just how much of his life was consumed in his quest to expose charlatans in the medium/psychic/spiritualist business. An early 20th century James "Amazing" Randi, if you will.

One of those mediums was Mina Crandon, a.k.a. "Margery." Along with her surgeon husband, she held seances to 'connect' grieving widows and widowers with their dear departed spouses. Parents with lost children. That sort of thing.

But get the picture out of your head of four people sitting with their hands atop a wooden table waiting for it to rise from the floor. Margery's method would frequently involve her stripping down to nothing... and, well, there's no way to put this delicately, so I'll quote from page 449: "Later that month, McDougall, who had finally glimpsed the ectoplasm that issued from Margery's nether regions, claimed that it looked a lot like the lung tissue from an animal."

Wow. Certainly not what I expected to read in a true story set mostly prior to the 1920s!

Houdini initially sought out Margery (and her ilk) in order to try to communicate with his own deceased parents. Especially his mother, who was probably the only woman that he loved completely and unconditionally. But despite the fact that he desperately wanted to believe that he could communicate with them, it became clear to him that these seances were total scams, designed to separate the suffering from their money. Using his expertise as one of the best magicians of the day (if not ever), he could easily duplicate everything they purported to do, and made it his life's mission to expose every last one of them.

Needless to say, the spiritualists who saw their livelihood put in jeopardy by Houdini, were none too thrilled with the "exposure," thus adding to the intrigue involving his death at the relatively young age of 52. Were they somehow involved? Read the book and draw your own conclusions.

- Jonathan Sabin

Harry Houdini : The Man, The Myth, The Spy, The Secret Service Agent

A lot of people love reading about Harry Houdini the magician, the Handcuff King the escape artist but did you know that he was a spy & a Secret Service agent? I can prove it with one book & a few well versed words here. The book I am talking about is one I am just over half way through & it is entitled "The Secret Life of Houdini : The Making of a Superhero."

This book is awesome & I encourage everyone to read it and enjoy the story of Harry Houdini from beginning to end. It tells about the man, the myth, the spy, the Secret Service agent who was a performer who made the world love him & his shows & continually conquered his every demon, including his own self loathing while continually re-creating himself for the world at large.

Yes this book still fits into this world of the wide web that is the internet. The book is all about how all of Harry Houdini's having been a major instigator in World War I in the propaganda & success of America while Harry Houdini, or some may know him better as Ehrich Weiss, a Jewish man who changed his identity to fit better into the world and to better sell himself to the world as an entertainer at large for War World I in the rise of Germany the first time it came to power.

The fact that the book is from archival data and letters both from & to Harry Houdini is what makes this book so intriguing. Please feel free to enjoy the book & I would love to hear anyone else's opinion & thoughts on this subject. A lot of people do not know that the Secret Service was a spy agency at one time and was connected to the spy world like the C.I.A., N.S.A., D.I.A. & the rest of the alphabet Intelligent Agencies.

Harry Houdini taught our American Dough Boys how to escape from handcuffs, being tied in ropes, & how to escape from torpedoed ships by being on stage in an ampitheater & having actually being a teacher of the American military.

Houdini was one very interesting and talented guy. His story is fascinating, and this book tells it in depth. Unfortunately, it's encumbered by the style, which is on the ponderous side and devoid of art and magic. It's also two books, in a sense, which reflects the fact that Houdini's life had two main chapters: magician, and then debunker of Spiritualism. For me, the story got much more compelling when the tale turned to Houdini's campaign against phony mediums. It's just a fascinating story. (Arthur Conan Doyle plays a big part in this section and turns out to have been quite the fool.) If you can handle the plodding style, this book's worth it.

Harry Houdini was quite an extraordinary man. He could escape from almost any type of restraint, pick cell door locks with ease, and toward the end of his life, battle to expose phony mediums. This book tells it all, but in a rather odd way. Often there are disconnects between sections of the book, and it doesn't flow chronologically, which can get somewhat confusing. Also, many times the authors discuss something, but don't pin it down in time, which definitely is confusing. One of the main aims of the book, according to the authors, was to reveal that Houdini worked as a "secret agent" for various governments. While they cobble together suppositions and snippets of writings, to my mind they don't get anywhere near proving their case. Read the book for the story of an amazing man, and let it go at that!

This is a very serious and complete biography. I bought this expecting something more for the masses, lots of rumor and sensationalism. In fact, it's a very thoughtful book, with lots of detail and very little speculation, presenting many of the lesser known aspects of Houdini's life, including his campaign against spiritualism and fraudulent mediums, and his extraordinary physical prowess. Not everything was a trick. Many things he accomplished by sheer force of will. Houdini was clearly much more multidimensional than portrayed in movies and popular references. The book also includes many details on the culture and other celebrities of the time; the extensive information on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was especially interesting. I give it 4 stars only for the fact that there are no footnotes or references. I understand that the authors chose to put those on their Web site, but they're much less useful separated from the book they document.

Honestly, this is the only book on Harry Houdini most people will ever need. This tome covers his ancestry and birth in Hungary as Ehrich Weiss, his family's emigration to the United States, his growing fascination and obsession with magic, his long and phenomenally successful career as the greatest theatrical performer of the first half of the 20th century, as well dropping loud hints about a potential side career doing espionage work and how it evolved into an obsession with debunking spirit mediums and fortune tellers that he pursued with single-minded zeal right through to the last moments of his all-too-short life.

The research is strong, there are plenty of good illustrations and photographs scattered throughout the text, and the writing keeps things moving. It does, however, suffer from glossing over some aspects of Houdini's story. The implication that Houdini did some spy work for the United States is dropped repeatedly, with no actual follow up facts to corroborate it, except that gosh, he sure seemed to be able to get in to meet with a lot of police captains to check out their local jails. His obsession with aviation, and with being the first to fly an airplane in Australia, is just far enough outside of logic that it requires an explanation about why he sacrificed so much time, money and effort to try something so briefly, only to drop it and come home after a couple of successful flights. A hundred years ago, halfway around the world was a far longer trek than it is today. A bit more on why he did it would have been welcome.

These may sound like quibbles, but they do sometimes distract from the greater arc of the story, which is unfortunate. Harry Houdini was unquestionably a brilliant man, an intellectual genius, with founts of drive and resourcefulness beyond anything I've borne witness to in my own life, ever. And this book covers a ton of ground, detailing the tricks he used, the projects on which he focused, and the turbulent relationships he had with his wife, family, friends, and occasional indiscretions. But I didn't stay with this book to read about his potential affairs or his marital spats; I did so to find out more about about his magic and illusions, his spy work, and his research debunking the claims of the paranormal, because it is in those things -- the actual stuff of being the real superhero advertised in the title -- that this otherwise impressive biography falls short.