The aptly named "Devious Deceptions", a 65-page, comb-bound book, offers a wealth of varied, visual and entertaining effects-mostly of the close-up variety. This collection of winners, from the diabolical mentalism gaff, to the instantaneous deck changes-decks change sizes and into other objects, offers something for just about every magician. Steve Skomp has indeed created a series of devious, as well as entertaining, deceptions.
Tiny Terrors
"Terror in Tiny Town" is a card effect where three cards are freely chosen by spectators and then, miniature replicas of the chosen cards appear in unlikely places. After Skomp explains the workings for this effect, you can use your imagination to produce miniature cards just about anywhere you wish.
"Monster in a Box" offers a running gag that works in stand-up or formal close-up shows. Here, a box that's sitting on a table opens and a pair of eyes peers out from under its lid. It's a strong running gag that is completely under your control and plays particularly well when the audience notices the eyes and you don’t. Skomp’s method is simple and easy to make, and completely mechanical, with no electronics.
The Gaff
"Ouch" is an effect where you appear to pull your finger away from your hand. This effect could have used some diagrams to offer a better explanation. The Chesire Card, perhaps one of the more conventional effects in this collection, offers a card transposition. Here, a coin that’s dropped inside a card box causes a chosen card to disappear from the box and reappear on top of the deck.
With the "Steffi Gaff" (named after the tennis ace), Skomp steers into high gear. He shows how to make a gaff that lets you write twice with a pen-secretly duplicating your writing. Using this clever idea, you can duplicate a word that a spectator volunteers, for example, the name of their dog or their hometown, which offers a new advantage, for example, in signed card routines. The gaff is nothing short of brilliant and Skomp offers several killer mentalism-style effects that make excellent use of the gimmick. This alone is worth the price of the book.
Eyes Have It
A mentalism effect called "Penetrating Eyes" offers a gimmick that may be made inexpensively from a few items at the hardware store. The result, your eyes can be covered with coins, and then with masking tape, modeling clay, aluminum foil or wrapping paper, and a cloth bag, and somehow, you can still reveal an object that's being held up, read passages from books, describe audience members, drive a car and more. Ocular Fingertips is an offbeat effect where a magician is able to books and magazines, seemingly with his fingertips. The effect relies on an obscure device that may be hard to find and expensive.
Skomp explains some good coin effects. These effects are briefly explained and require a foundation in coin sleights, most notably, the Tenkai pinch. In "Welded Coins," a dime held in one hand literally joins another one held in the other, which the spectator can't pull apart. In "Get Bent," a quarter in one hand disappears to join another quarter held in the other hand. When one of the quarters is given to a spectator to hold and squeeze, it is later found to be bent. In "Tenkai Kicker," two quarters, one in each hand, join together to form a half dollar.
