Bluff

February 5, 2018
At the start of this intriguing if flawed caper novel from Kardos (Before He Finds Her), 27-year-old magician Natalie Webb loses her cool with an audience volunteer and nearly blinds him with a thrown playing card at a holiday party held at a Newark, N.J., hotel. Anticipating a costly settlement, Natalie needs to get some cash quickly. Her initial plan is to write an article comparing a magician’s card tricks with a card sharp’s methods of cheating, but she decides to abandon her chosen subject, Ethan Garret, for Ethan’s niece, Ellen, after observing her in action at the card table. Natalie’s plan changes again when Ellen offers to take her on as a partner in a card cheating scheme that could net $1 million. But instead of moving to the high-stakes game, the story bogs down in page upon page of card manipulation practice. The thrills come finally on the night of the game and in its startling aftermath. This works best as a character study of Natalie, who has a deep backstory that explains her current straits and motivation. Agent: Jody Kahn, Brandt & Hochman Literary Agents.

March 1, 2018
At 17, Natalie Webb fell from grace as America's most promising magician to persona non grata in the magic community after taking public revenge on the trade's duplicitous golden boy. Nine years later, she's making ends meet by headlining at parties until she wounds a nasty heckler and is on the hook for a hefty settlement. Natalie pitches an article to Men's Quarterly on card sharks that she hopes will resurrect her career, and stumbles across a scarily gifted shark while hunting interview-worthy subjects at a private poker game. Ellen, the shark, refuses to be interviewed but shocks Natalie with an invitation to partner with her in a poker scam she claims will net millions with almost no risk. But the stakes rise dramatically when Natalie learns that the billionaire political candidate hosting the game is the cutthroat who destroyed her father. Natalie is a sharp-witted survivor with a relatable self-sabotaging streak whose move into the dark world of card cheats climaxes with a spin worthy of the most adept con artists.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)