I really enjoyed it but then I always enjoy Steinmeyer's stuff. Until I read it I didn't realise how hand to mouth the stage life was at the time. He mentions on one occasion Thurston standing on the deck of a ship to England practising a coin vanish and he fluffs it and drops the coin overboard, only realising afterwards on checking his pockets that was the only money he had.
Definitely worth a read, as is his biography of Ching Ling Su (aka William Robinson).