Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on March 28, 2010
In 2007 the authors discovered a long-lost CIA file, once top secret, created by magician John Mulholl while employed as the agency's first magician. The intent was to guide CIA officers on how to use magicians' craft in clandestine operations. That lost file comprises the material in "The Official CIA Manual of Trickery and Deception." Readers get the lowdown on 'flash paper' that burst into flame when touched by a lit cigarette, water-soluble paper, disguises, switching clothes and persons, an agent impersonating a 180-lb. large dog, how the sawing a woman in half trick works, sleight of hand in dropping pills in someone else's drink etc. Nice, but it gets old after awhile, and one doubts how useful the lessons learned were in practice.