I saw the movie version first, which is a stunning work of cinema by director Christopher Nolan, and that led me back to the source material by Christopher Priest. This novel is an engaging bit of storytelling even though most will agree it meanders when compared with the movie. Studying them together is a good master's class on the differences between the mediums. The story of The Prestige is the story of the rivalry between two magicians, Borden and Angier, obsessed with the craft, and their journal entries often serve as the narration. The book has more room to explore and frame the story around the family legacies of the two men, and it also dives deeply into the turn-of-the-century interest in spiritism, which is absent from the film.

Like his other novel "The inverted world" this is a mystery of sorts. It's not a who-dunnit but a how-dunnit. We meet Nikolai Tesla and travel from the world of Victorian England and stage shows to the isolated parts of America. The characters and settings are well portrayed and it's a pleasure to puzzle out the mystery that lies at the heart of the book.