Jack Parker's

Set to Kill

Available: www.jacksdeck.com
Price: $20
Format: eBook

I really love Jack's work, a lot of creative stuff flows through his brain. I bought this and two other of his eBooks and I will be reviewing them in a 3 part series, so here is part 1, enjoy:

Sunken 21 - The description in the eBook says "The twenty one card, but not as you know it", which is exactly right. Those of you that are afraid of the cliche three rows of seven, you will be happy to know that it is only dealt out like that once. And once you deal them out the effect is essentially over any way. The effect uses a great "key" card principle, but it does require a bit of math. But nothing hard, just some simple multiplication and addition. When you are sessioning with your magician buddies try this out on them, you'll find it will probably even fool them!

Invisible 21 - This one combines the "invisible card" with the 21 card trick, for one great ingenious effect. This would be great to follow a spectator that just did the traditional 21 card trick, it would slay! It's the twenty one card trick where their mental selection vanishes, leaving only twenty cards, then reappears next to a chosen card. With David Solomon also at the helm you can't go wrong. This on also requires about of math, but less than the previous handling.

Fool's Gold - A great Ace Assembly! Wow, so much magic in one little package. An assembly where there are two backfires, and a surprise appearance of a royal flush. I really liked this one, I am a sucker for royal flush kickers! Only thing is that some people might need to use a soft surface for this effect since there is some Double handling.

Bare Naked Ladies - An ultra clean assembly with the queens with a backfire ending. This effect is pretty fast and minimalistic, only uses seven cards. There is one slight discrepancy in the effect which is easily overlooked by the spectator. But you might want to work on your Mexican Turnovers for this.....

Buried Alive - Favorite effect alert! An incredibly startling face-up transposition. So awesome, real quick, visual, and not really hard (For me atleast). Only bad thing is that it requires some thing that not every deck of cards has. But Jack does give a way to do it another way.

Smell of Success - An effect were you attempt to "sniff" out the mate of a prediction on the table. When you sniff the wrong card, the prediction changes into the correct card. This happens again except the spectator does it instead. I really wasn't feelling this effect to much, I don't why though. I already use an effect like this by Jay Sankey called Soul Mates, so I don't think I need to switch. Sorry Jack, but I am sure plenty of other people will like this effect.

Long Dimension Phone Call - Award for best presentation goes to this effect. You apperantly have a friend in another dimension who can do mystical stuff. And you call upon him to do the effect, the effect is that the 4 fours change into the 4 Jacks and then the 4s reappear in weird places. Sick effect + awesome presentation = Great effect.

Alone in the Dark - Jack trys to add a little "pizzaz" to a pretty dry effect AKA Impossible Card Location. I think he does a pretty good job at it too. This location uses a variation of the location used in Sunken 21 and puts it to good use! The patter brings a nice storytelling type presentation to this effect. Again this effect uses some math but nothing you can't handle!

Thought Provoker - A nice mindreading effect that can either turn out to be a Miracle or a Lesser Miracle. Which to me is a Win-Win situation! This effect combines Poker and mindreading, since the spectator mentally choses a card from a freely chosen poker hand. If you get the Prediction wrong then the alternative is that the spectator can imediately spell to their their mentally selected card. This does require a 20 card stack though, so if you are into stacks then you will most likely love this effect, I normally don't do stacks but I feel it is worth it for this effect.

Rumpshaker - AWESOME! An incredible Bottom Dealing Demo that is sleightless, the only that could add to this effect is if you can actually perform a decent Bottom Deal. If not you still have a killer effect, were you swindle the spectators and then slay them at the end by beating the four aces in poker. Awesome effect, does require an extensive stack, but again, it is REALLY worth it!

Ballerina Double - Jack's pretty and deceptive double lift. Not hard at all and it has a nice "snap" subtlety to it. Works for me, and you will pick it up in no time.

Flat Rate of Interest - The lone coin effect in the notes. In this one you push a coin "into" a playing card. Again I wasn't really feeling this one. I don't really like coins too much so this didn't tickle my fancy. But it does use a great coin vanish by Paul Harris. I'm sure someone would like this one.

This has "great buy" written all over it. The material in these pages are awesome, even if you don't like the effects, read them anyway because you might learn something! Jack is obviously a very clever magician and it shows in the material. Most of the effects are keepers in my opinion, simple and practical, not for beginners though. I am glad I got more from this guy! Great stuff people go buy it!!!

Final Score / 9.4