Harding

Well, of course I cannot disagree with the Doc about Harding, seeing how it was he who convinced that Warren G. was a Pretty Decent President. And since I know that the Doc and Robert Farrell can swap scandal arcana like, I imagine, about five other people in the United States, I quite frankly do not choose to question the Doc's assertions.

But the old line persists, and it has recently produced an interesting sub-plot of a decent novel, Carter Beats the Devil. It's a sprawling mystery/thriller/picaresque sort of thing about a magician in the early decades of the 20th century. Carter is a contemporary of Houdini, a performer in the great age of stage magic, a celebrity at the beginning of the age of mass celebrity. In many ways it is like a Tom Wolfe novel set in the magic business. And since Warren Harding turns up at Carter the Great's show on the last night of his life, there is more than a whiff of presidential scandal found in this stew of a book. Alas, the author gets his history from Carl Anthony.