Steve Bryant lurks on the dark side of magic.

Deep in Little Egypt, in the remote region of southern Illinois where the towns in the mist bear the ancient names of Thebes and Karnak and Cairo, Steve grew up on the drive-in horror movies of the 1950s, on the gothic cartoons of Charles Addams, and on the ghost stories he and his friends used to tell on dark bus rides to high school football games. If a boy such as that grew up to do card tricks, what would he do?

Here in 230 haunted pages lie the answers—part home spook shows developed for children and their parents, part ghoulish Halloween extravaganzas developed for adult performance in a seedy river town bar.

If you’ve ever wanted to host a séance, put on a midnight ghost show, or haunt a house, you need this macabre compendium of the world’s scariest magic tricks.

Be afraid, be very afraid …