Close-Up Classics by Michael Vincent

Reviewed by Jamy Ian Swiss (originally published in Genii January, 1998)

Yet another member of the Crosthwaite clan of cardicianship, Michael Vincent provides 15 items in this low-tech production, including variations of popular plots like the Collectors, sandwich tricks, Wild Card, Triumph, Everywhere and Nowhere, Remember and Forget, and more. The descriptions are brief if reasonably clear, and the illustrations are good where they appear, but far from numerous. The technical demands tend to be high; like Mr. Crosthwaite, Mr. Vincent's technical tastes are in the decidedly exotic and Marlovian range. As such, his solutions are often interesting but not always efficient or within practical reach, and he will frequently send you to the Marlo literature for descriptions of sleights referred to but not redescribed. All is not esoteric here, however, as witnessed by a sound Remember and Forget relying upon the Top Change, and a commercial three-phase cards-and-handkerchief routine. This would be an interesting set of lecture notes for 15 or 20 dollars; at 35 dollars one would have to be a committed and curious cardician indeed to justify the asking price