A magical family, a unicorn and witchcraft: books read

THE IMPROVISERS: A Murder and Magic Novel by Nicole Glover is in the same universe as her The Conductors, with a protagonist who’s the grandchild of the detectives there. A barnstomer in the 1930s (based on Bessie Coleman, a real-life black female pilot), she stumbles across a magical murder and investigates, bringing her family in on the case.

The barnstorming opening reminds me what I loved most about the first book (Improvisers is third in the series with) was the period detail; the mystery was the weakest part. This one has less period detail and a lot more mystery (given her eccentric family chiming in, I’d class it as a magical cozy). So not as good.

Comic-strip writer/artist Dana Simpson recently announced she was shutting down her daily Phoebe and Her Unicorn strip because graphic novels were working better for her as a revenue source. That prompted me to pick up THE MAGIC STORM in which Phoebe and her BFF, Marigold Sparklingnostrils, must investigate a strange storm that’s shutting down not only the town’s power grid but magical energy too. As a fan of the strip I enjoyed it, though it felt like the pacing was a little off (more like the strip, not like a self-contained graphic novel).

Reviewing Manly Wade Wellman’s After Dark, I said it came off close to a non-supernatural conspiracy thriller. That’s even more two of the third Silver John novel, THE LOST AND THE LURKING, in which the government sends John to an abandoned mill town that’s become the center of the International Wiccan Communist Conspiracy. No, seriously: the town’s been taken over by witches/Satanists (in this book, they’re the same thing) and they’re now contacting unfriendly foreign powers to do Something (we never learn what).

I like that John’s repeated encounters with evil have toughened his spirit to the point he can shake off most of the cult’s initial enchantments. That makes it disappointing that when things ramp up — he ends up in a very bad situation — it’s resolved by John simply carrying a magic talisman rather than his inner strength (oh, and a literal Magical Negro helps). It’s a disappointing book though I still want to read the remaining two, The Hanging Stones and The Voice of the Mountain (which I remember as the best of the novels). However they’re priced higher than I want to spend so it may be a while.

Image by Simpson, all rights remain with current holder.