I first posted this review in the Grab a book and play Booktivity group discussion Where is your bookmark?. Being one the laziest people ever observed in their natural habitat, I will paste it here. It is as good for the finished book as it was for page one hundred and something.

Vote is 2.5 stars. The half star is an acknowledgement that the novel did its job quite well. It distracted me from problems. I will record it as a 2 stars book, though. I cannot force myself to give it a third star for the life of me. It is waaaaay to clumsy and clichéed.

I wanted gore flavour brain chewingum, I got gore flavour brain chewingum.
The idea of delving into the illusionists' world makes the book readable. For the rest, Jeffrey Deaver delivers business as usual: the wonder-woman Amelia is always there to make you feel that, no matters what L'Oréal ad says, you are NOT as worth it as she is; the super-man Lyncoln Rhyme is always there to remind you that a tetraplegic life can be full of exciting events thanks to an iron will, a stellar QI and sh*tloads of money (and that being tetraplegic has never prevented anybody from being intolerable); loads of innocent people keep meeting sticky ends just so that Rhyme can humiliate everybody else with his encyclopaedic knowledge and Amelia can overcome yet another trauma from the past. She must be the wet dream of any shrink.
She also has a name that reads quite old-fashioned to Italian eyes. I can't help reading it Ah-meh-lyah. The old lady at my granma's favourite bakery was called Ah-meh-lya.
By the way, I love Deaver's Lincoln Rhyme thrillers. They are reassuring, the style is not too flat, and I forget everything about them as soon as I close them, so I can read them every year. ( )

Knowledge of the working of magician performer’s is seen here. IT is clearly entangled with the plot which has surprises and puzzles. Character development IS well done. ( )

Good read. A little too many twists but it seemed to work. ( )

This 13 hour book would have been really tight at about half that length. I thought the "patter" excessive. On the plus side, the Conjurer showed us many magic tricks; on the minus side, the Conjurer showed us too many magic tricks -- I lost count. The characters are all quite good and Sachs develops nicely in this one. ( )

Mr.Deaver kept me guessing until the very end. And I kept guessing wrong! I am reading the Lincoln Rhymes series in order and they just keep getting better and better. This book is a must read. ( )