The year is 1895, and Danny Flint is a young man living in the shadow of his controlling father, a famous stage magician whose fortunes are fading. Uncle Brady, Professor Flint’s trusted assistant and business manager and Danny’s best friend, cannot stay in the same hotel as them—Uncle Brady is African-American. Danny is grieving over his mother’s recent accidental death, for which he feels he is to blame.
Danny and his father will confront the ethical dilemma between spiritualist séances and faked séances performed by stage magicians like them.
He will learn to reconcile himself with his grief and guilt, learn the secret of Uncle Brady’s identity, and assume his place at center stage as a talented magician in his own right with the help of a mysterious beautiful lady.
I devoted two years to researching the 1890s for The Gilded Age, a Time Travel. After that book was done and published by Bantam, I asked myself (like every red-blooded writer) how I could coax some more stories out of all that great research.
This novella is one of those beneficiaries. Every Mystery Unexplained was published in David Copperfield’s Tales of the Impossible (HarperPrism). This acclaimed anthology included stories by Ray Bradbury, Joyce Carol Oates, Kevin J. Anderson, F. Paul Wilson, and the wonderful late Janet Berliner, who masterminded and edited the book. And yes, Janet signed on that David Copperfield, the renowned modern stage magician, as our sponsor. The book is out of print and difficult to find.
Every Mystery Unexplained is published again on Nook, Kindle, and UK Kindle.
