Starts out terrifically with interesting historical based characters who promise an action packed engrossing read. Julius Meyer and his cousin Alexander are Jews leaving the Old World behind for the promise of the New. Alexander is a magician in training with his older brother, and will soon surpass him to become the world's most famous magician. Julius goes to the frontier to work in his brother's store but is kidnapped by the Ponca Indian tribe. Thanks to his amazing ability to quickly learn and speak like a native any language he is exposed to, he is adopted as a son by the Chief and becomes the tribe's translator.

Aside from the two Meyers being cousins, for which there is no historical evidence, this is evidently all true. What a great setup! Kolpan also introduces good fictional characters to play significant roles in his story. Lady-Jane is a Ponca Indian who is forced into prostitution in the white world as a girl and who later becomes Alexander's assistant. She has a troubling inclination towards taking violent vengeance on those she believes have wronged her. Chased By Owls is a remorseless Ponca warrior, representing those Indians who refused to bend the knee to the white government and its untrustworthy promises.

The sympathetic parallels between the situation of Jews in a Christian Europe and Native Americans in a white North America are believably illuminated.

The usually entertaining story moves quickly. For readers accustomed to the leisurely pace of much literary fiction, it moves astonishingly quickly. This left me disappointed at times. For instance, when Julius is kidnapped by the Ponca he is treated poorly and naturally would like nothing better than to get back home. After his facility with language is discovered and the chief announces he will adopt him, the story instantly leaps many months ahead and we find Julius with a fierce and loving attachment to the Ponca, refusing to go back to his birth family. That is a major character transition, and there is not a page given to that process.

The ending becomes rather soap opera like. Alexander's EVIL brother Comparrs makes trouble. But really he's not half as evil as our author makes out. Maybe not even a quarter, unless he's got a secret slavery operation off on the side. A new love interest gets misty-eyed, pressing her wet face into a manly lapel. Well that was unfortunate.

Overall though this is a fun read, pretty well balanced between light entertainment and Things Worth Thinking About. ( )

Very good read ( )

Before Houdini, the greatest magicians were probably the Herrmann brothers, Alexander and Compars (Carl) They were German Jews who divided up the "civilized world" between them (North America to Alexander and Europe to Compars) to avoid competition. Inevitably, they ended up trying to outdo each other, creating more and more dangerous and outrageous tricks. The main focus of the book however, is Julius Meyer, Alexander's nephew, who settles in Omaha, Nebraska and becomes a great defender of Indian rights, living with the Ponca tribe and becoming the translator (he was a remarkable polyglot) and eventually the adopted son of their greatest chief, Standing Bear. This chief figured in a famous 1879 trial where he actually had to prove that he was a human being entitled to the same constitutional rights as everyone else. He's regarded as a hero in Nebraska. I had never heard of any of these people prior to reading this fascinating book, which seamlessly interweaves their stories with those of fictional characters. ( )