I received this book today from Steven's Magic, paid $20 postage paid. Much better then ordering direct from Romhany, as postage from Australia is $20 additional. Their postage rates is out of this world literally. This little book of unnumbered pages is as Paul Romhany says, he thought there has never been a book on this trick, so he thought he would write one. That is exactly how it reads, he just sat down at his computer and wrote it. There are numerous spelling error and word substitutes in the book. One can kind of guess what he is saying, but it would have been nice if he had some proof read it for him.

The book and handling explanations 'read kind of choppy' with no flow from one move that should blend into the next. So I felt I was not being told the whole truth, as I was left feeling that something was left out from one action to the next.

The book start out with a history of the trick as 'Paul Romhany' knows it, kind of a person research and what he has gleaned over the years of on this trick. He totally left out mentioning Joseph Grabrill, who does not use the standard available cages, and the version I have by Martini Magic.

The explanations are okay, but as I said on the preparation of the fruit and egg, just invest in John shryock "Ring In Walnut" DVD for the complete method to prepare the fruit for his trick and the OLEC trick.

The book then describes Paul Romhany's handling and routine, but does not mention if this trick should be used with music or patter. No suggestions was mentioned on this important part of the presentation, in my opinion. Then James E. Holguin's routine is explained as well as Bryan Gilles lightly explains his ideas and routine on this subject.

The book is a good introduction to a trick that has never been written about. It does leave a lot of room for improvement on the covering the subject. I can say it was not because of no room to print the book or number of pages. As the whole text and photos are down the center of each page, with very wide white margins on a half page book.

You definitely will not get a step-by-step explanation of each version, so if one thinks they will buy the book and start practicing, that is a false assumption on their part. What you will get is lots of ideas and decisions to make in creating your own version of this classic effect in magic.

Finally, all three offerings only cover the commercially purchased OLEC cages, so if you have not already, that would be your next step in desiring to present this trick. And depending on your methods, may mean some shopping for various items on your own. Like Topits, Devil's Hanks, faux fruit, real fruit, real or plastic canaries or parakeets, etc.

In the end I only feel I have a lot of choices to make, and that is exactly why I bought the book, to find out if any of the many choices I have found will work or not. I don't feel those questions were answered at all.

Instead of writing from a persons that say they have been performing this effect for hundreds of performances, I did not get the feeling of confidence in material. I sort of got the impression that they grabbed the cage on the way out the door and when they got to the performing area, said to themselves, "how will I choose to perform this trick tonight?".

I recommend this book if you are interested in learning about this effect and what it will take to present it. You will need special cases and carriers for this effect to tote around, and that was not even mentioned in the book.

Well, there you have it my 1st Paul Romhany Perfect bound booklet. I counted the pages, it is 61 pages or 119 printed pages. No Forward or index, just an Introduction. Made in the U.S.A, Charleston, S.C., how about that.

Thanks, Bill, for your astute review.