MADBALL . . . It was only cheap glass, a fraud, a come-on for the suckers who paid Doc Magus to gaze into its depths and tell them tomorrow would be better. And Doc—a decent man, a smart man—pitied them. Yet tonight, even Doc had to believe the Madball. There as nothing left to lead him to the money—enough money to spring him free of the raucous, sordid world of the pitchmen and the pickled punks, the cotton candy and the kewpie dolls—and the belly dancers who needed him for all-night alibis.
Doc was shrewd, but not quite shrewd enough. Someone else knew about the $42,000—a specialist in death, who was only yards away . . .
MADBALL is a novel of one traveling show, and of the lives of its carneys, who live to close to the edge of frenzy.