Night Magic - Hardcover

Tom Tryon, a noted film actor whose bestselling books include Crowned Heads and All That Glitters, died while revising Night Magic. Valerie Martin, author of Mary Reilly and many other novels, and John Cullen were brought in to finish and polish the manuscript.

In this rich cauldron of illusion and ambition, a Manhattan street mime becomes entangled with a conjurer who cultivates the secret powers of sorcery. Their encounter begins when Michael Hawke, in whiteface, prances as a frog in front of the conjurer Max, who has just jolted the art world by inducing a Rembrandt painting to shed tears. With a sepulchral incantation, "Be a frog," the magician's next trick knocks Mike out and into the Plaza fountain. Thereafter Mike is mesmerized by the wizard's esoteric knowledge. Even those who scoff at mystical themes recognize the universality of the human weakness to know what others don't, and the late author rigs his novel with intricate, enthralling twists, from the reunion of the two principals, through the pupil's apprenticeship in a dilapidated theater, right on to the finale of a magic show, performed by the master of illusion and his newly trained assistant. At the performance's climax, the wizard transfers to Mike the symbol of his power, an amulet representing the Eye of Horus, but it nearly (and symbolically, as the cost of ambition) kills him and girlfriend Emily. Tryon's Faustian tale of the young hero's initiation and indoctrination is certain to be popular with occult fans; those hooked on yarns of magic a la Robertson Davies' Deptford Trilogy will join the crowd. And movie rights have been optioned to Paramount for a motion picture starring Tom Cruise. Gilbert Taylor