The Magician

Sol Stein

Apr 2013 · Untreed Reads

About this ebook

A vicious high school fight leads to a terrifying miscarriage of justice in this “superior” legal thriller by the celebrated author: “A spectacular read” (The New York Times).
 
For sixteen-year-old Ed Japhet, high school prom is a moment to shine. Performing a magic act for his classmates and teachers, Ed scares the wits out of them with feats that include the use of a trick guillotine. But while Ed’s act pleases the crowd, it upsets a young hoodlum named Stanislaus Urek who doesn’t like being made to look foolish. Catching up to Ed and his girlfriend in the parking lot, Urek beats Ed within an inch of his promising life.
 
Everyone knows Urek should be behind bars. But while Ed survives the merciless attack, the fight has only begun. Urek’s father hires a lawyer named Thomassy who knows a few tricks of his own. In a protracted legal battle, Thommasy discredits some witnesses and intimidates others until American justice looks like nothing but smoke and mirrors in this “fast-moving, incisive” thriller (Library Journal).

About the author

Sol Stein is a Chicago-born transplant to the Bronx. In the 1950's he was an anti-Communist scriptwriter for the Voice of America, Washington¿s Cold War propaganda radio network, and a leading defender of civil liberties. But he made his lasting mark in publishing. In 1962 he and his wife at the time, Patricia Day, founded the publishing house Stein and Day, which had immediate success that year with the director Elia Kazan¿s debut book, America, America. The story of a Greek youth who comes to the United States, the book sold three million copies, and Mr. Kazan turned it into a movie, released the next year. Mr. Stein was Stein and Day¿s editor in chief. In one of the many books Mr. Stein himself wrote, Bankruptcy: A Feast for Lawyers (1989), he exposed the bureaucratic nightmare that had accompanied the financial implosion of Stein and Day after 27 years in business. Solomon Stein was born in Chicago on Oct. 13, 1926, to Louis and Zelda (Zam) Stein, Jewish immigrants who fled Russia. His mother became a translator for the United Nations. His father was a jewelry designer. The family moved to the North Bronx in 1930. Mr. Stein went on to enroll at City College, but his studies there were interrupted when he enlisted in the Army Air Forces in 1944. He voluntarily transferred to the infantry and served in Germany during the post-World War II occupation. After returning from military service, he completed his bachelor of social science degree and earned a master¿s in English and comparative literature at Columbia. Besides working as an anti-Communist scriptwriter for the Voice of America, Mr. Stein was a member of its ideological advisory staff starting in the early 1950s. The journalist Robert Scheer, who was editor of the left-leaning Ramparts magazine in the late 1960s, branded him The Archdeacon of the Cold War. Sol Sttein passed away on September 26, 2019 at the age of 92.