The Confabulist captures Houdini

A new novel featuring Houdini and a fictional take on his "murder" is headed our way in May. The Confabulist by Steven Galloway will be published by Riverhead in the U.S. and by Knopf in Canada. Here's the description:

From the beloved, award-winning, bestselling author of The Cellist of Sarajevo, a beautiful, suspense-filled novel that uses the life and sudden death of Harry Houdini to weave a magical tale of intrigue, love and illusion.

The Confabulist weaves together the life, loves and murder of the world's greatest magician, Harry Houdini, with the story of the man who killed him (twice): Martin Strauss, an everyday man whose fate was tied to the magician's in unforeseen ways. A cast of memorable characters spins around Houdini's celebrity-driven life, as they did in his time: from the Romanov family soon to be assassinated, to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and the powerful heads of Scotland Yard, and the Spiritualists who would use whoever they could to establish their religion. A brilliant novel about fame and ambition, reality and illusion, and the ways that love, grief and imagination can alter what we perceive and believe.

U.S. edition (left) and the Knopf International Edition (right).

As you can see, the Canadian or "International Edition" from Knopf has what I think is much better cover art than the U.S. hardcover. You can pre-order the U.S. edition at Amazon. There is also a listing for the Knopf edition, but it currently shows as unavailable. You can, however, pre-order the Knopf edition direct from the Canadian Amazon.ca.