The War Magician: Based on an Extraordinary True Story (2024)

This book has been sitting on my shelf for some time (taunting me) so I thought it was about time I set the record straight.

Without re-typing the cover blurb all over again here we have the incredible story of Jasper Maskelyne who during the 1930s made his name as a magician and illusionist. However when war broke out he found himself another role. That of the war Magician where he would put is understanding and familiarity of misdirection and subterfuge to use in the theatre of war.

Now I will be the first to say that it is always too easy to glorify and simplify war and I am not trying either when commenting about this book. However what does surprise and intrigue me how the surprising and unexpected can arise from such terrible events.

One thing I would say is that reading this book it does feel like you are reading the abridged version and that there was substantially more to write about the man. But for some reason or other it was left out and as such the story of Jasper Maskelyne was rushed through.

Now on further digging I discover that several people call in to question the reliability of this book, not so much as it is fabricated more that references and citations are missing and that there is too little to back up many of the claims something that I miss (if nothing else I love to read around a subject)

So I must conclude that yes I enjoyed reading this book and would like to think that many of the claims are true now however I am not so sure. That said it would be good to think that such achievements could be made through deception and misdirection rather than destruction and death.

It is really quite annoying that so much of this book is obviously wildly untrue, as, if any of the stories in it *are* true, this would be totally fantastic and satisfying and brilliant. And some of them seem like they might be. But in a book that cheerfully presents all kinds of details and stories and conversations with no citations, and includes detailed scenes that obviously never happened (eg when Maskelyne gets into a magic competition with a H Rider Haggard-style highly implausible and grossly Orientalist-stereotyped fakir) you basically have to assume most of it is made up. Except that apparently Maskelyne *did* do things like camouflaging tanks, and creating illusions...and maybe 'moving' Alexandria Harbour...and surely you could check the thing about how he hid the Suez Canal...

Etc. I basically want to believe this book is true because I would prefer to live in a world where it is, and it's very irritating that I can't. A silly affair.

A shame. I very much enjoyed this book, although I wasn't very happy with the lack of distinction between things that really happened and things that were clearly fabricated (e.g. dialogue), or with the lack of information about the book's sources. Checking online, such as at this site I find that my suspicions about the book appear to be true, and that it seems to be highly unreliable and drawing heavily on the imagination both of David Fisher himself and of the ghostwriter of Maskelyne's Magic: Top Secret. I am really disappointed by this, because the book is well-paced and interesting. It just isn't factual.

I first learned of Jasper Maskelyne on a History Channel documentary. This British magician was born to magicking a family going back for several generations. Early on in WWII he realized that his misdirection and prestidigitation skills could have valuable wartime uses. He repeatedly approached military and government figures hoping to convince them of this and, ultimately, was sent to serve in north Africa—where no one knew what to do with him.

Gradually the benefits of his skills became known, and he performed feats that truly seemed like magic during the war. He and his team created a false harbor to the north of an existing harbor and through lighting, faked destruction, and a whole lot of putting up, taking down, and general scrambling, tricked German bombers into making nighttime attacks on the fake harbor, rather than the real one. He created a fake aircraft carrier that prevented German attacks on smaller vessels nearby. With a handful of team members, three small boats, and three barges that were no long useful for their original purpose, he convinced the Nazi army that a major amphibious assault was underway just at the moment a real, land-based assault was beginning far to the north.

You can see why I found him so fascinating.

When I first learned of Jasper Maskelyne, the only "popular" biography of him was David Fisher's The War Magician (1983), which had been out of print for years, had become a collector's item, and was priced well beyond my purchasing power. This year, The War Magician was re-released—apparently a film version of it starring Benedict Cumberbatch is in the works—so I snapped it up now that I could get a copy at a reasonable price.

The War Magician provides an introduction to Maskelyne's military career, but it's of limited value in some ways. First, The War Magician is fiction based on real life, but one doesn't know which parts of the book are fictitious and which are documented fact. Second, the book covers the start of Maskelyne's work with the army in north Africa; he went on to serve on multiple continents, so much of his story isn't included here. Finally, the book is dated in ways that make it less engaging for readers than it might be, containing lines like "The men scattered like Scotsmen at the scent of a bill." Nonetheless, if one is looking for a book about Maskelyne, The War Magician is what's available.

So I read the book, rolling my eyes regularly, and was wowed by Maskelyne's exploits. My hope is that if a film is being made of The War Magician—with Benedict Cumberbatch!—perhaps new biographies accessible for popular reading will be produced. The War Magician is definitely worth a read, but I'm hoping that even better titles are on the horizon.

While the book is an entertaining romp through the claimed war exploits of magician Jasper Maskelyne, most of the events described existed mainly in Maskelyne's mind. "Peter Forbes writes that the "flamboyant" magician's contribution was... either absolutely central (if you believe his account and that of his biographer) or very marginal (if you believe the official records and more recent research)." Forbes goes on to note that author David Fisher was "clearly under the wizard's spell."
It is notable that the other book I recently read about the role of camouflage in war did have a single mention of Jasper.

A film adaptation has been announced, starring Benedict Cumberbunch after the project was dropped by Peter Weir and Tommy Cruise.

Read the book only for basic entertainment value, but definitely not for factual information.

No rating because I haven't finished it.

The premise and the storyline sounds so exciting! But after I learnt from other reviewers that many of the author's claims have hardly any solid evidence to back them up, I lost interest and returned the book to the library.

Cool story but it read a bit like British propaganda and i found it hard to suspend my disbelief.

This book has a major flaw, so I am inclined to think there are probably other big errors too and, therefore, doubt most of the facts and just read this book as a fiction. That is a shame for Jasper Maskelyne as he was a fascinating man who undoubtedly made a huge contribution to the war effort and his story should be told, but this author is not one you can trust to tell the true story and his editor and publisher also let Maskelyne down by failing to pick up on the glaring error.

The author is writing about the role of an English man in WWII and, in the course of the book, offends the Welsh, Northern Irish and the Scots in particular by persistently referring to England as if it equals Britain and the two words are interchangeable. They are not. Yes, Maskelyne was English, but the author is ignorant about a key part of his topic, and that is that the British Prime Minster declared war on Germany on behalf of Britain, not England. I could be equally offensive to the author and stereotype him dismissively by saying he is a 'typical American' who doesn't understand the composition of Great Britain and who obviously didn't bother to check his facts, but a lot of Americans DO know the difference between England and Britain and are aware that Britain is made up of several countries, only one of which is England.

The author even refers to the British Army (a big clue there!) but states that it was defending England. It wasn't. The British Army was defending Britain. British Army. Britain. Why is that hard to understand? Per head of population Scotland provides more people to the British Army than England, and it's ignorant of Fisher to write off the efforts of three countries in the UK by using 'England' on the occasions he should use 'Britain'. His ignorance is made even more puzzling as the author knows that Scotland (if not Wales & NI) exists. He refers to how Hess "flew a specially equipped Messerschmitt 110 across the North Sea to Petersfield, near Glasgow, Scotland". Sadly, he then shows truly embarrassing ignorance by claiming Hess came to Scotland to "arrange a peace treaty between England and Germany". Totally illogical, especially as such a treaty couldn't have been considered as there was no English government for Hess to talk to, only a British government.

The author always refers correctly to the British Army, and even says the 2nd Battalion Scots Guards were fighting in North Africa, he so must know that Scotland was involved in the war. Does he think Scotland is not part of Britain? An overwhelming error for an author who claims to have researched his topic.

Fisher also makes a stereotypical and deeply offensive comment against the Scots, which has no place at all in a 'factual' book. As part of the British Army, Scots were fighting the Nazis for two years before America decided to join in, so it's particularly galling that an American is so rude about them. To be fair, the author does make several comments about America 'finally' joining in and how unready they were when they set aside their declared neutrality and joined the Allies against Hitler, quite unusual to have it acknowledged in that way by an American author, but it doesn't excuse the other errors.

The author needs to change to a proper editor/publisher who would pick up glaring errors like this. I'd really like to read the true story of Jasper Maskalyne from a good author like Ben Macintyre, who wrote books about 'Operation Mincemeat' and 'Agent Zig Zag'. Macintyre's books are based on good research and he quotes his sources.

I've given this book 3 out of 5, but those three points all belong to Jasper Mskelyne as he is such an interesting man. Read this book for Maskelyne's sake, but be aware of the failings of the author.

This was an interesting book, claiming lots of things about Jasper Maskelyne and his supposed exploits during WW2, mostly in Egypt against Rommel.

The author writes in a style that seems to be a mixture of history and dramatization, giving details of conversations and other characters in his "Magic Gang". But no attribution is given, at least in the edition of the book I read (Berkley Books, NY; ISBN 0-425-06295-3) that explains how these conversations/activities/reports might have been derived.

The highlight of the book is towards the end, where Maskelyne and his Magic Gang supposedly won the battle of El Alamein for Montgomery against Rommel, using "classic" legerdemain on a grand scale, distracting the Nazis in such a way that they were fooled into thinking that an attack would not be forthcoming as soon as it was, and that it would come from a different direction than it did.

The book was entertaining, although I kind of lost interest in the middle, and picked it up again later to finish reading it.

Online accounts tend to dismiss Maskelyne's activities and suggest that he claimed too much about his WW2 activities.

An interesting read, but one perhaps not to be taken too literally.

---- Update ----

I found a web site (http://www.maskelynemagic.com/) that sheds light on the claims in this book. Judge for yourself...

“The War Magician” is a terrific history not to be missed by readers interested in WWII and especially the desert battle that raged and seesawed across North Africa.

At the start of the war, Jasper Maskelyne was a celebrated English magician hailing from a family of legendary magicians. Believing that the art of illusion could be of great benefit on the battlefield, Maskelyne sought an Army commission but was repeatedly turned down because recruiting officers wanted young fighting men, not 37-year-old entertainers able to saw people in half and make elephants disappear. But then a family friend brought Maskelyne and his ideas to the attention of Primer Minister Winston Churchill. Maskelyne was made a lieutenant and eventually assigned to a camouflage unit in North Africa where he and the “Magic Gang” he assembled and commanded spent the war fooling General Erwin Rommel and his Afrika Korps with various illusions.

Author David Fisher gives us the story of those illusions, what they were, and how they were made on a shoestring budget from junkyard materials at a cobbled-together desert factory reminiscent of a movie studio. It’s a tale of the kind of ingenuity shown in “The Great Escape” and by “James Bond” author Ian Fleming’s Q and his band of “gadgeteers.”

Mr. Fisher does an excellent job portraying and acquainting his readers with Jasper Maskelyne. Far from the stereotypical egomaniacal attention-seeker one might expect a stage magician to be, Maskelyne is a self-effacing, very likable, very clever and competent professional who cares for his men, loves his wife deeply, and wants nothing more than to be of service. One of the greatest pleasures of this book, for me, was getting to know and spend time with Maskelyne.

And for those interested in the “nuts and bolts” of the North Africa campaign, Mr. Fisher spends a good amount of ink and effort on comprehensive explanations of the battles, objectives, commanders, conditions, and political considerations involved. I thought I learned a great deal.

Muy buen libro. Me encanto la manera del escribir del autor en esta novela histórica acerca de Jasper Maskelayne y la cuadrilla mágica, héroes anónimos que salvaron muchas vidas, cada uno con un carácter distinto que con sus talentos lograron tanto. Los personajes estan muy bien caracterízados y la descripción de la época y las condiciones muy bien hecha. El tópico militar está muy bien descrito y los métodos que utilizaron para contrarrestar a ese gran oponente como lo fue Erwin Rommel fue para quitarse el sombrero, dignos adversarios. Algo resaltante es que el autor enfoca a enemigo como un adversario y es como los ingleses veían al Zorro del desierto, un militar sin igual. Un libro super recomendado para aprender de manera amena a través de la historia del mago de la guerra sobre la segunda guerra mundial en el norte de África.

Having seen this book mentioned by Elly Griffiths, I wanted to get to know the man who inspired her Max Mephisto. If we'd learned about all this stuff when I was back in high school, history class would have been much more interesting.

A jolly good yarn and some of it may actually be true, but probably not much. The book itself is a magician’s trick Maskelyne would have been proud of.

This review is for the audio version, read by Alex Jennings. Call it 3.5/5 stars, rounded down because it did feel a little overlong at times, and because it's an interesting story but its claims are heavily disputed.

It's hard to know how much faith to put in this account - nearly all of the author's and Jasper Maskelyne's claims have been challenged by . Did he in fact lead a unit who designed and built all sorts of camouflage equipment and dummy tanks, ships, etc. to fool German spy planes, or is he blowing smoke and claiming credit for things that were either accomplished by others or never happened at all? Did Maskelyne douse himself in a paste of his own devising and stand directly in burning flames for 3 minutes with no other protective equipment, while a soldier in a protective asbestos suit went into the same fire with him and got severely burned? Did his unit help make a diversionary attack during the final battle with Field Marshal Rommel's forces? Did his Magic Gang unit in fact exist at all?

It seems like pretty much every other source disputes this book's claims, so the safe bet is that a lot of this account is either wildly exaggerated or completely made up. It's been 80+ years since the events in this book, so you'd think some sources would be declassified by now, if in fact any of these events really did happen. And yet there has been no big vindication of Maskelyne's claims, so it seems most likely to me that most of the claims in this book are unfounded.

However, as a work of fiction it's fairly interesting. The idea of applying the principles of stage magic to warfare, in the form of misdirection and camouflage, definitely has appeal. Most of the specific projects that are claimed to have happened seem at least somewhat plausible, though the bit about standing in flames for several minutes and coming out completely unharmed with nothing but some paste to protect a person stretches credulity pretty far. But fake tanks made of mostly cardboard and canvas? It wouldn't fool someone up close, but I can see how they might be able to fool spy planes that are hundreds of feet up in the air and snapping some quick photos using 1940s-era camera technology.

Judged as a fictionalized account, it's not bad. Still not the most riveting thing I've ever read, but it's at least somewhat entertaining. The narration is... fine, I suppose. Nothing to write home about.

I'd hesitate to recommend this to someone because of how untrustworthy the account seems to be, but if someone is already interested then I'd say go into it with an open mind and you will probably enjoy this.

I love World War II history, and just when I thought I had read every kind of true story to come out about the war, I am proven wrong.

Jasper Maskelyne was Europe’s preeminent magician, playing for heads of state, kings, queens, and everyone in between. His family is well known for magical talent, so he came into it naturally. Sleight of hand is his trade, and when war came knocking, he answered the call. He traded his theatrical stage for a much bigger stage and proved himself to be a valuable asset. There was no challenge provided that was too big for him and his squad to handle. He and his squad made Nazi general Erwin Rommel believe there were tanks and battleships where there were none, they moved the Alexandria harbor, and they made the Suez Canal virtually disappear. These were but a taste of what was to come, and the obstacles he and his squad would overcome.

This book had my attention from the first page. Magic has always interested me, and to see it used in combat to trick the enemy was beyond exciting for me. The writing is fluid and the pace is consistent. If anything, the book sort of falls into a formula: We have a big problem; Can we find a solution; Success! And it is this formula that kind of bogs down the story. Not so much as it becomes the same because each problem is followed by a bigger problem, but you know the crew will be successful. That aside, I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who is interested.

I give this book 4 bookmarks out of 5!

I never thought I would be so thoroughly gripped by this book, but I was. Utterly! It was written in such an engaging way, that made it entertaining, informative and interesting.

Now I can’t comment on whether everything written here is true, based on fact or largely built around speculation and myth as I honestly knew little about this subject matter before reading this but I can write about the effortless flow of this book, the great writing and the way it had me hanging off every page. I loved it from the beginning and from its entertainment value and my enjoyment, I gave it the five stars.

Reading about the ‘Magic Gang’ and all of their exploits was incredibly interesting and certainly gives you an interest and a basis to want to find out more about them. I was enamoured and completely in awe of all of the things they managed to achieve. Jasper Masqueline appeared to be such a character and some of the things he was tasked with defy belief! It can be hard writing about this war in a way that doesn’t romanticise it or sensationalise it but I believe the balance was struck well and shed light on the difficulties and ruthlessness that was encountered and some of the amazing feats they managed to achieve.

I’d had this book languishing on my shelf for a while and I’m glad I finally got round to picking it up. It was well worth the read for me!

This thing reads like a movie script. It's filled with extensive, heartfelt, very specific conversations that are impossible to vet all these years later. There are pages of inner dialogues;how could anyone know what those folks in the middle of WWII were exactly thinking. I found myself skipping ahead a lot, looking for something more grounded.

Ostensibly, Jasper Maskelyne, a descendant of a long line of stage illusionists, wishes to contribute to the war effort, but is rejected by the Army because of his age and his profession. He eventually finds a way in, and from there winds up creating a magical gang made of fellow misfits. They begin their work by making dummy soldiers, tanks, and vehicles, all to convince the Luftwaffe scouts that the English coast is too well defended to invade without proper preparation. From there the tricks become bigger, like moving the port of Alexandria, or hiding the Suez Canal. Blah blah.

It isn't that this is a bad book, it's just that it burbles along without a scrap of proof.

Fisher cuenta la supuesta historia de Jasper Markelyne un ilusionista que aplicó sus trucos al camuflaje militar durante la campaña de África en la segunda guerra mundial. A poco que uno haya leído de historia o tenga sentido común, todo suena absolutamente inverosímil.

Una búsqueda rápida por Google destapa la verdad, Maskerlyne muy probablemente no hizo nada de lo que dice el libro y la única fuente de sus hazañas es su propia autobiografía.

A partir de ahí me pregunto, ¿Cuál es el propósito de este libro? Fisher podría haber hecho un estudio sobre quién fue realmente Maskerlyne, que le llevó a inventarse su hoja de servicios, comparar lo que dice con los hechos históricos... Ahí podría haber una historia interesante, Cercas hizo algo parecido en "El impostor". Pero ¿Escribir un libro basándose únicamente en una fuente? Eso es plagio como mínimo...

Jasper Maskelyne was a war hero who made James Bond look like a piker. Or, so he claimed in a ghostwritten autobiography published shortly after World War II.

Nearly all of Maskelyne's stories (which author David Fisher takes at face value) have been debunked by historians. Maskelyne's contributions to the war effort were fairly minor. He did not undertake any secret missions, his experimental camouflage unit was a failure, and he spent most of the war entertaining troops.

David Fisher is not a historian but a former sportscaster. He is best known for writing Bill O'Reilly's "Legends and Lies" series. So, it's not surprising that this "non-fiction" book is nothing but legend and lies.

Anyone who's interested in the true story of Jasper Maskelyne can start with this article:

https://www.geniionline.com/2017/12/2...

Easy to read and fascinating. Not a book I could put down. I wanted to see what happened next and what they would create next.

I had previously read "Lions of the Desert" by Samuel Marquis which covered another aspect of World War II in North Africa. This book built on my knowledge of that time. Like "Lions of the Desert", this book relates some incredible tales from that time.

My late father-in-law was in the Australian Army at El Alamein; apparently he was in an Observation Post. Now I'm wondering if the post and what he observed was like that described herein. He talked about his "ringside seat".

Fisher covered the Gang's involvement in North Africa while relating it to the whole campaign.

An enjoyable read.

Book was entertaining. Obviously as has been discussed, the scholarship is dubious, but it's a narrative history, not academic definitive history, although a lot of issues could have been negated with a simple disclaimer.

As far as that goes, I don't particularly care - it was entertaining enough, although it ran out of steam for me toward the finish line. The high point was early on, especially enjoyed the radio transmitter/magic show escapade.

It reminded me a lot of the Josephine Baker book by Damian Lewis which came out this past year in that the prose was gushing and uncritical - and it took place in a very similar setting - early war Morroco, but for me, this held my interest even if Fisher fanboyed a bit to hard; Lewis on the other hand, almost fetishized Baker to distraction.

While the writing was a bit ham-handed, not quite to the level of a great non-fiction storyteller like Erik Larson, this true story was completely spellbinding. A third-generation British stage magician joins the British army with the idea that he could use his powers of illusion and misdirection to aid in the battle against the Nazis in WWII.

Little could he have imagined how much his talents would be needed to defeat the Desert Fox, Rommel himself.

I knew none of this piece of history and, now discovered, I can't imagine how this story has been little told. I learned that a movie of this book was slated, starring Benedict Cumberbach, but cannot find a release date. Perhaps it has been shelved, but it sure should be made.

There's a definite arc here. Jasper Maskelyne comes from a long line of magicians and conjurers. When war is declared on Britain, he wants to join the military and do something to apply the principles of legerdemain and misdirection to warfare. At first, he's considered a joke. A modest success gets him a unit of misfits. Together they become known as The Magic Gang and start building a reputation for themselves. They build fake tanks, "move" an entire coastal town, and come up with a light show to bring down planes. It's a tale of a civilian becoming molded by the military, being changed by the ugly realities of war, and deep friendship. A nice insight into the British Army during wartime. Soon to be a major potion picture with Benedict Cumberbatch. This will be a role he was born for.

Fictional story seasoned with some historical facts to grab the insights of the desert campaign and the power of deception in war campaigns.
Maskeline intervention in the real war scenario has been discussed according to several bibliography but we won't be able to know more until documents turn unclassified by 2070... perhaps by then we will have a real dimension of his job.
So far the book is a long readable story although my feeling is that it lacks of evidence, makes references to several artefacts which are never visible, no picture, no accurate description, on one hand is freed to imagination, on the other hand, if you are interested on war facts, details are vague.

This is a story about a British magician who joined the Army in WWII and eventually became the head of a unit in Africa. Our hero was an expert in camouflage and his skills aided the British greatly. The members of his team didn't quite fit the Army's mold but work perfectly for Jasper Maskelyne.

This is, for me at least, a different telling of a WWII story. There are friendships formed, anxiety about family back in Great Britain who were being bombed nightly, encounters with Egyptians who were "hosting" the Army and a cohesive unit formed which made a difference in ending the war in Africa.

Highly recommended

Excellent! If you're looking for a book that is interesting and not exactly like you read last week - this book is it!
It's about WWII and the efforts of Jasper Maskelyne, a world famous magician, who used his familial gift of illusion, stage magic and special effects in the battlefields of North Africa.
Sooooo interesting. It helped contextualize WWII for me more than any history lesson I've ever had. The author does seem to know a lot about what people are thinking at all times, which is a bit questionable, but other than that - no complaints.

War Magician

This book had to many details about the specific battles. I loved the parts designated to Jasper and the Gang. But those parts were buried among actual troop movements. For me, this was an okay read especially since it is about a real person. But I had no idea “magic” was used so effectively nor have I read much about WWII in Africa. I did generally enjoy the book but I skimmed over a lot the detailed battle parts.

Las descripciones pueden llevar a see algo tediosas, pero el desarrollo de la mentalidad del protagonista resulta conmovedora y logra enfatizar con aquellos que tienen una perspectiva de la guerra que pudiera distar de la realidad. Recomendado para los apasionados del periodo histórico, incluye buenos detalles

Wanted some entertainment during a visit to the Emergency Room. Really happy I grabbed this book. Not only is it a great read, but it reintruduced me to the reasons why I majored in history. Fortunately, my hospital stay was only over night. and I have a good excuse to keep on reading - following doctor's orders to relax the next couple of days

luckily i was

All, and completely new history for me

This was very interesting reading due to the fact that I’ve never magician, or what he did during world war two. For the British reader, this was probably old hat, but for the American reader, this was brand new knowledge, and very interesting.