There’s lots of good stuff going on here… great atmosphere, compelling characters, epic plot, interesting ideas being explored. I’m a sucker for anything involving WWII, comics, escape artists, magic tricks, old New York, the World’s Fair, and on and on. Certainly worth the read just for all that, but it feels like he didn’t know what to do with all of this after he had built it up, and the second half of the novel goes downhill to an abrupt and rather deflating end. Maybe that’s supposed to be the point, but it was dissatisying nonetheless after the great set up.