Masters of Mystery

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Nov 25, 2011 ARCHIVES  |  Entertainment  |  COLUMNS

Christopher Sandford
Palgrave
ISBN NA
$27

Reviewed by Yvonne Zipp

This fall features many new works on Arthur Conan Doyle and his most famous creation, including a lost novel by the author himself.

2. Conan Doyle and Harry Houdini were on the front lines of spiritualism, writes Christopher Sandford in "Masters of Mystery" (Palgrave, $27). But the magician was the one applying cold logic, while the creator of the world's most famous detective believed wholeheartedly in spirits and fairies. After failed attempts to contact his mother via seances, Houdini became so incensed by charlatans that he offered $10,000 (about $420,000 today) to any medium who could create a physical manifestation that he couldn't disprove. (No one collected.) "It takes a flimflammer to catch a flimflammer," he said. While originally friends, the two men fell out after Doyle's wife claimed to channel Houdini's mother. Since the spirit communicated "in fluent English," a language his mother had never spoken, Houdini remained unpersuaded.

Yvonne Zipp reviews books for The Washington Post and the Christian Science Monitor.

Copyright 2011 Washington Post Writers Group
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