cover image Modern Day Houdini: Secrets of My Twenty-Five Greatest Escapes

Modern Day Houdini: Secrets of My Twenty-Five Greatest Escapes

Bill Shirk. Lyons Press, $14.95 (175pp) ISBN 978-1-59228-196-1

Shirk,""the number one escape artist in the world,"" shares his life story, explaining how he went from being an afternoon disc jockey at an Indianapolis radio station to pulling stunts like being buried in a coffin underground for 96 hours with a python and a spider. With self-deprecating wit and honest assessments of his failures, Shirk, who admits that for many years he""had the biggest ego in the world,"" explains how he felt about 25 of his craziest escapes. About being suspended on a cable from a helicopter while dangling from one ankle 200 feet in the air, Shirk writes,""If you have some grand vision about soaring like a bird under a helicopter, you need a fantasy readjustment. This was not fun."" Among Shirk's other escapades are being run over by a train (it missed hitting him by 6 inches, as he flattened himself on the tracks""half a second"" before it arrived) and hanging from a burning rope, while handcuffed and chained, over a pool of 30 sharks. Photos.