Why a Booktrail?
All the fun of the fair with the showgirls and tricksters of Berlin’s scandalous underground
The Bullet Trick
What you need to know before your trail
When down-at-heel Glasgow conjurer William Wilson gets booked for a string of cabaret gigs in Berlin, he’s hoping his luck’s on the turn. There were certain spectators from his last show who he’d rather forget. Like the one who’s now a corpse.
Amongst the showgirls and tricksters of Berlin’s scandalous underground Wilson can abandon his heart, his head and, more importantly, his past. But secrets have a habit of catching up with him and, as he gets sucked into certain lucrative after-hours work, the line between what’s an act and what’s real starts to blur.
Locations
Reset- Scotland - Glasgow
- A: Gallowgate
- B: Glasgow Railway station
- England - London
- C: Crouch End
- D: The London Palladium
- Germany - Berlin
- E: English Theatre Berlin
- F: Mitte
- G: Deutsches Theater
Travel Guide
Glasgow, London, Berlin
A tour of the dirty, seedy and underbellies of modern towns and cities so not a trail for the faint at heart!
Glasgow
The author has christened her anti-hero William Wilson–the same name, in fact, as the luckless hero of the Edgar Allen Poe tale of sinister duality. Wilson in this novel is desperate to escape from his crushing existence in Glasgow, and so jumps at the chance to perform his conjuring tricks in Berlin. It’s a way to escape a city as well as his drab existence in the Scottish city.
Berlin
The seedy glamour of the burlesque scene is illustrated across the three cities, but it’s Berlin that seems to have the biggest and grubbiest underbelly.
Something awful happens in Berlin, which makes him flee to Glasgow where he drinks himself into oblivion. It’s very graphically and grimly portrayed in this novel too..
London
It’s here where the world of the theatre comes to life. He makes his living by doing a second-rate show in a London strip club. It’s the Paladium where he dreams of, but it seems so near but yet so far.
Booktrail Boarding Pass: The Bullet Trick
Destination: Berlin, Glasgow, London Author/Guide: Louise Welsh
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