When I’m travelling, little, 50-page booklets on card magic are a goldmine. They’re thin, they’re light, and with nothing more than a pack of cards you can not only read but actually walk through 10 or 15 tricks in one sitting. Books like Harry Lorayne’s Personal Secrets, Allan Ackerman’s Here’s My Card, and even Karl Fulves’s Self-Working Card Tricks series all brightened (and shortened) many a plane ride for me.

Conversely, this 1949 book by Al Leech left me somewhat cold. Most of the tricks are bland in both plot and methodology – transpositions, a sandwich routine, Ace effects and the like. Nothing terrible, but very little that an audience could actually invest in emotionally.

On a more positive note, there are two routines I do like in here - “The Influential Ace,” a clean, direct effect in which three Aces vanish from half a deck held by the magician and appear in the other half held by the spectator, joining the fourth Ace that was placed there to “attract” them. And “Turnover Divination” is an interesting effect in which one of five cards is freely chosen while the magician’s back is turned, whereupon all five are inserted face up into the face-down deck. The deck is squared, then spread face down on the table, revealing four of the five reversed cards to have turned face down – the only card remaining face up is the spectator’s selection.

All in all, however, there are better small collections of card magic available, including Al Leech’s own 1953 book, Card Man Stuff.

David Acer