title: The Magician and the Fool: A Novel
author:  Barth Anderson 
description: At the start of Anderson's offbeat thriller, Jeremiah Rosemont, a disgraced art historian who's been backpacking through Central America, accepts an airline ticket to Rome from a man he's never seen before. Later, Rosemont walks through the back door of a Roman hotel and finds himself in a street filled with strange festival-goers and men and women from his own past. Meanwhile in Minnesota, two deadly killers, one of whom was born in the 14th century, pursue a Dumpster diver and tarot reader called Boy King. The plot revolves around an ancient tarot deck, the origins of which, if authenticated by Jeremiah, will change the nature of the arcane "science" of divination. Anderson (<i>The Patron Saint of Plagues</i>) doesn't make it easy on the reader, preferring to reveal his swirling, complex story bit by enigmatic bit. Those willing to surrender themselves to this talented author's compelling vision will find a fevered dream universe where understanding in the normal sense is probably not possible, nor even necessary. <i>(Apr.)</i> <br />Copyright  Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
zlib_text:   
  _Illusion_  
  ---  
  Peretti - Novels [8]  
  Frank Peretti  
  Howard Books (2012)  
  Rating: | ★★★★☆  
  Tags: | Christian  
  Christianttt  
    
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  Dane and Mandy, a popular magic act for forty years, are tragically separated
  by a car wreck that claims Mandy’s life—or so everyone thinks. Even as Dane
  mourns and tries to rebuild his life without her, Mandy, supposedly dead,
  awakes in the present as the nineteen-year-old she was in 1970. Distraught and
  disoriented in what to her is the future, she is confined to a mental ward
  until she discovers a magical ability to pass invisibly through time and space
  to escape. Alone in a strange world, she uses her mysterious powers to eke out
  a living, performing magic on the streets and in a quaint coffee shop.
  
  Hoping to discover an exciting new talent, Dane ventures into the coffee shop
  and is transfixed by the magic he sees, illusions that even he, a seasoned
  professional, cannot explain. But more than anything, he is emotionally
  devastated