After all, even Tom Cruise couldn’t get it made with Paramount in 2002 and AMC – which has found success with zombies, meth cookers and ‘60s advertising drama – didn’t manage to crack the code on TV. Right now, Lord and Miller are still in the early stages of figuring out whether they’ll get involved, which means no one should take this as a sign that we’ll see the book in cinemas any time soon. But it weaves a fabricated tale around him, involving President Warren G Harding (who turns up dead, sparking a murder mystery) and other real figures, including Harry Houdini and the Marx Brothers. The story follows real-life stage magician Charles Carter in the 1920s. Gold’s book, which blended real historical fact with fiction long before Seth Grahame-Smith dabbled with zombies, vampire hunters and wise men, was a big hit when it arrived. Now, 21 Jump Street co-directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller are in talks to try to shepherd it to our screens. (Sept.Though Glen David Gold’s novel Carter Beats The Devil was quickly snatched up for film adaptation upon publication in 2001, it has since lingered in the netherworld of development, unable to cross over into the land of production. Simultaneous release with the Hyperion hardcover (Forecasts, Sept.

Listeners will lap up this enticing adventure. His nasal interpretation of a corrupt conjurer named Mysterioso sounds like a slightly more dastardly version of Professor Hinkle of Frosty the Snowmanįame, and he is equally comfortable rendering young lovers' sweet nothings and the stentorian showmanship of a performer on stage.

Tucci ( Big Night, Joe Gould's Secret) skillfully handles the wide array of often eccentric characters. The rest of Gold's debut novel follows the death's ramifications for Carter and those around him, while tracing the magician's own development through a series of flashbacks. Problems arise when Harding dies under strange circumstances two hours later. Set in Roaring '20s San Francisco, the story takes off when President Harding agrees to appear in the finale of a show with magician Carter the Great, going through a series of dicey illusions before emerging on stage at the end to take a bow and declare his good health. Tucci gives Gold's bewitching tale of intrigue, deception and-most important of all-magic a performance of which both author and actor should be proud.

Carter beats the devil