Nightmare Alley - William Lindsay Gresham

Stan Carlisle is working as a carny and sets himself above the freak-show geeks. Onstage, he plays a mentalist and caters to the rich and gullible. It looks like the world is Stan's for the taking. At least for now. n nOne of the twentieth century's most darkly beautiful works of crime fiction--a story of carny life, spiritualism, and a con man of merciless resolve. n nNightmare Alley begins with an extraordinary description of a freak-show geek--alcoholic and abject and the object of the voyeuristic crowd's gleeful disgust and derision--going about his work at a county fair. Young Stan Carlisle is working as a carny, and he wonders how a man could fall so low. There's no way in hell, he vows, that anything like that will ever happen to him.n nAnd since Stan is clever and ambitious and not without a useful streak of ruthlessness, soon enough he's going places. Onstage he plays the mentalist with a cute bimbo (before long his harried wife), then he graduates to full-blown spiritualist, catering to the needs of the rich and gullible in their well-upholstered homes. It looks like the world is Stan's for the taking. At least for now.n