"A son embarks on a journey involving a disappearing suitcase, secret police, and a strange letter, while pursuing a father who appears to have fallen victim to Alzheimer's disease. A man inherits a deserted island and is drawn into the mysterious, possibly deadly affairs of a strange couple on a sailboat. A gold miner in a remote Amazon outpost escapes from a murderous foreman by building an improbable machine. A writer chases the evasive opening sentence of his novel while locked down in his Rio de Janeiro apartment with his wife, until she usurps the narrative. In the four tales that comprise As If by Magic, Edgard Telles Ribeiro invites us into labyrinthine worlds where what we perceive is only the beginning of the story"--