The Cardsharp and the Magician

For 21st century readers this novel takes us back exactly 100 years and opens a world as troubled and uncertain as our own. Had Heltai been born an American, he would have been part of the Lost Generation, and his unnamed protagonist and main character in his novel would have been considered as a mirror image of F. Scott Fitzgerald's Great Gatsby, namely how somebody of rank and wealth reverts into a penniless nobody. Whether he is seen as a friend or foe of this impoverished nobleman, Mr Selfridge, the 'Magician', is a man who also lives on the edge, but due to his maturity, is more enterprising and more cautious in matters of survival. It is the grey-eyed blonde who completes the trio, and unwittingly fuels the flames of both love and hate, honour and betrayal, and is ultimately the cause which leads the story towards its dramatic end.