The two men are mutually antagonistic for many years afterwards as they rise to become world-renowned stage magicians, with the feud affecting the later generations of their families to come, including Kate and Andrew.

However, Olivia begins to fall in love with Borden, and they conspire to send Angier on a wild goose chase thinking that the act relies on technology from the acclaimed inventor Nikola Tesla.

Tesla's device teleports a human being from one place to another by creating an exact physical duplicate at a specified destination into which the person's consciousness is instantly transmitted while the original body is left behind, lifeless.

Angier's duplicate, feeling alienated from the world by his ghostly form and consumed with thoughts of revenge, attacks one of the Borden twins before a performance.

However, Borden's apparent poor health, age, and the duplicate Angier's resurgent sense of morality cause him to stop short of murdering the twin.

Shortly afterwards, the corporeal Angier dies and his ghostly duplicate uses Tesla's device one last time to teleport himself into the body, hoping that he will either reanimate it and become whole again or kill himself instantly and so reunite with his other self in death.

Andrew also finds a prestige of a small boy labeled Nicholas Julius Borden, with his place of creation listed as Caldlow House.

And the novel provides the pleasures of a mystery as well, as the reader attempts to find the man (or men) behind the curtain, and discover the true parentage of Andrew Westley, who may or may not be related to Borden.

Priest weaves together a tale of two feuding stage magicians at the turn of the century, a dark but mesmerising story that sees two men become consumed with, and eventually destroyed by, obsession.

While the film hammers you over the head with clues about the final twist, so much so that you feel embarrassed when re-watching it, Priest's novel is more subtle, although a smart reader is in on the trick from the start.

"[6] The Guardian review said, "Behind all the surface trickery lies an intelligent and thoughtful novel about the nature of illusion and secrecy, and about the damage done to those who appoint themselves keepers of such dangerous secrets.

"[7] A review in Kliatt of the audiobook version narrated by Simon Vance described it as "a spellbinding and entirely original neo-gothic thriller that moves the listener adroitly from the world of staged illusion to the otherworldly, from the historical...to the horror-laden, with all sorts of strange and dazzling stops along the way.

A lesser audiobook narrator might inadvertently muddle the story, but, as usual, Vance displays a dramatic and vocal range that is more than equal to his task.

"[8] A motion picture adaptation, which had been optioned by Newmarket Films,[11] and which was directed by Christopher Nolan, was released on 20 October 2006 in the United States.

It stars Christian Bale and Hugh Jackman as Borden and Angier, respectively, as well as Michael Caine, Scarlett Johansson and David Bowie.