Houdini Unbound: Mystery, Music and Flying Machines
Alan Attwood
ISBN: 9781922779205
About the book
It is 1910. Halley’s Comet is coming. Harry Houdini is in Australia for the first time. The most celebrated escape artist in the world has sold-out seasons in both Melbourne and Sydney.
Houdini has a new obsession: aviation. He has brought with him from Europe his own Voisin biplane, being put together and prepared in a Diggers Rest paddock by his French mechanic, Brassac. Houdini is intent on claiming a record: first to fly in Australia. But he has competition from aspiring aviators in several states, and is left restless and distracted when his promotional leap-in-chains from a Melbourne bridge disturbs a corpse in the Yarra.