Praise for Escape Artist... "Who would have thought that, of all the real-life characters to have a second life as detectives, Edna Ferber, now largely forgotten as a writer, would emerge as one of the best?" -Booklist starred review In 1904, Edna Ferber is a 19-year-old girl reporter for the Appleton, Wisconsin, Crescent, an occupation considered scandalous for a proper young lady. By chance, she interviews Harry Houdini, in town visiting old friends. When beautiful young Frana Lempke disappears from a locked room at the high school and is then discovered murdered, Edna asks Houdini for help in solving the murder. But as Edna pursues the story, she senses that she is being followed. And the newsroom has become a hostile environment, with a new city editor determined to undermine her.... Ed Ifkovic taught literature and creative writing at a community college in Connecticut for more than three decades. Now retired, he devotes himself to writing fiction. Escape Artist is his second novel.