2024 The Trick by Alan Howard Butterworth NEUF

Tricksters inhabit the world as we know it, an elusive fraction of the population either blessed or cursed with the power to creep through walls, control animals, endure crippling blows, or carry out countless other seemingly impossible feats. Billy Winn, a charismatic evangelical preacher with the power to heal, has steamrolled into the White House on a campaign to eradicate all people with tricks. As he cures hordes of new believers and his rivals wake up without heads, rumours swirl about his pet Angel of Death.

After a fast-walking postman is fatally stabbed in a trick-targeted hate-crime, a fresh wave of fear spreads through the United Kingdom, where a struggling cleaner is trying to make ends meet. This enigmatic trickster with the power to shrink objects is brought into the fold by a desperate resistance group. Only one man can put a stop to Billy Winns malevolent crusade, and hes been dead for two thousand years. If his remains can be shrunk down and smuggled out of Israel, then a boy necromancer and a re-animated mind-reading game show host might just be able to turn things around.

If only it were that simple.

The Trick is a wickedly comic dystopian tale filled with deadly games, superhuman feats, and intricate political intrigue in a world of magic and monsters.