David Fisher (2) (1946–)

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.… (more)