Handcuff King. Escape Artist. International Superstar. Since his death eighty years ago, Harry Houdini's life has been chronicled in books, in film, and on television. Now, in this groundbreaking biography, renowned magic expert William Kalush and best-selling writer Larry Sloman team up to find the man behind the myth. Drawing from millions of pages of research, they describe in vivid detail the passions that drove Houdini to perform ever-more-dangerous feats, his secret life as a spy, and a pernicious plot to subvert his legacy. After years of struggling on the dime museum circuit, Harry Houdini got a break that put him on the front page of a Chicago newspaper. He never looked back. Soon Houdini was performing for royalty, commanding vast sums, and exploring the new power of Hollywood to expand on his legend. At a time when spy agencies frequently co-opted amateurs, Houdini went to London and developed a relationship with a man who would run MI-5. For the next several years, the world's most famous magician traveled to Germany and Russia and routinely reported his findings.

More than two decades of research provide the basis for this true-life detective story of the mysterious man who stepped into Harry Houdini's dressing room on an October night in 1926, delivered one fatal sucker punch, and then vanished from the public eye completely. Nine days after the incident, Houdini was dead, the victim of a ruptured appendix, and his killer, a Montreal student named J. Gordon Whitehead, was nowhere to be found. Up to now, this tale of a mistimed punch and an untimely death had become myth, with many questions still unanswered: What happened to the man who threw the fatal punch? Who were the two witnesses and how much did they know? Was Houdini's death truly an accident?Interviews, affidavits, eyewitness reports of the night, and the only known photograph of Whitehead ever published all shed new light on an enduring mystery. Written with flair and wit, this tale of true crime gradually builds a riveting profile of the life of this intriguing but unknown historical figure, finding and then following Houdini's killer.

Transform the shackles of conformity into the tools for generating amazing, unconventional results Houdini performed his greatest tricks within the confines of a box. Now one of the advertising industry's brightest and most innovative stars shows you how to do likewise: to use the power of thinking inside the box to unleash the power of innate creativity. Who hasn't been extremely creative when boxed into an exceedingly tight deadline or budget? The Houdini Solution introduces a radical theory of how to generate more focused and powerful ideas by accepting, and even thriving on, constraints instead of being controlled by them. Filled with inspiring anecdotes and intriguing exercises that will yield surprising results, this book will spur you on to unleash the full power of your creativity, work magic in the workplace, and succeed beyond your wildest dreams.