History comes alive in this textured account of the rivalry between Harry Houdini and the so-called Witch of Lime Street, whose iconic lives intersected at a time when science was on the verge of embracing the paranormal. The 1920s are famous as the golden age of jazz and glamour, but it was also an era of fevered yearning for communion with the spirit world, after the loss of tens of millions in the First World War and the Spanish-flu epidemic. A desperate search for reunion with dead loved ones precipitated a tidal wave of self-proclaimed psychics—and, as reputable media sought stories on occult phenomena, mediums became celebrities. Against this backdrop, in 1924, the pretty wife of a distinguished Boston surgeon came to embody the raging national debate over Spiritualism, a movement devoted to communication with the dead. Reporters dubbed her the blonde Witch of Lime Street, but she was known to her followers simply as Margery. Her most vocal advocate was none other than Sherlock Holmes' creator Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who believed so thoroughly in Margery's powers that he urged her to enter a controversial contest, sponsored by Scientific American and offering a large cash prize to the first medium declared authentic by its impressive five-man investigative committee. Admired for both her exceptional charm and her dazzling effects, Margery was the best hope for the psychic practice to be empirically verified. Her supernatural gifts beguiled four of the judges. There was only one left to convince...the acclaimed escape artist, Harry Houdini. David Jaher's extraordinary debut culminates in the showdown between Houdini, a relentless unmasker of charlatans, and Margery, the nation's most credible spirit medium. The Witch of Lime Street, the first book to capture their electric public rivalry and the competition that brought them into each other’s orbit, returns us to an oft-mythologized era to deepen our understanding of its history, all while igniting our imagination and engaging with the timeless question: Is there life after death?

"Houdini the Magician Stumped," proclaimed the Boston Herald in 1924. Who was this medium who baffled Houdini? None other than Margery Crandon, the wife of a prominent Boston surgeon. "Margery the Medium" made headlines throughout the 1920s. She captivated not only Harvard professors, but the editors of Scientific American with her amazing physical mediumship. Margery was very much a woman of her time- the Roaring Twenties. By the time the Twenties were in full swing, Margery and her second husband Dr. Le Roi Crandon became interested in psychic phenomena. In May of 1923, Dr. Crandon invited two couples to join them in a table-tilting seance. During the evening, he discovered that his wife had a genuine gift for communicating with the spirits. Within months, Margery produced psychic music, direct voice, trumpet seance, and even apports. She not only fascinated her husband, but the scientific community in the United States and England. While Sir Arthur Conan-Doyle championed Margery's mediumship, Harry Houdini denounced her as a fraud. Was Margery Crandon too good to be true or was she the last of the great physical mediums?"