Harry Houdni s one-time apprentice holds fantastic secrets about the greatest illusionist in the world. But someone wants to claim them . . . or silence her before she can reveal them on her own.
Boston, 1926. Jenny Wren Lockhart is a bold eccentric even for a female vaudevillian. As notorious for her inherited wealth and gentleman s dress as she is for her unsavory upbringing in the back halls of a vaudeville theater, Wren lives in a world that challenges all manner of conventions.
In the months following Houdini s death, Wren is drawn into a web of mystery surrounding a spiritualist by the name of Horace Stapleton, a man defamed by Houdini s ardent debunking of fraudulent mystics in the years leading up to his death. But in a public illusion that goes terribly wrong, one man is dead and another stands charged with his murder. Though he s known as one of her teacher s greatest critics, Wren must decide to become the one thing she never wanted to be: Stapleton s defender.
Forced to team up with the newly formed FBI, Wren races against time and an unknown enemy, all to prove the innocence of a hated man. In a world of illusion, of the vaudeville halls that showcase the flamboyant and the strange, Wren s carefully constructed world threatens to collapse around her. Layered with mystery, illusion, and the artistry of the Jazz Age s bygone vaudeville era, The Illusionist s Apprentice is a journey through love and loss and the underpinnings of faith on each life s stage.
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