Sacrificial Magic
Stacia Kane
Del Rey, Mar 27 2012, $7.99
ISBN: 9780345527509

Mob boss Sloberg arranged the fire in a locale that he should not have known about unless someone told him. Chess Putnam the Church of Real Truth is a ghost hunting witch who knows by just one look her boyfriend Terrible that he believes she is the stoolie as she and Sloberg’s son Lex were recent bed mates even after she fell in love with Terrible; though now she is a one man woman.

The Church assigns Chess to look into a reported ghost haunting at a Downside school where she meets Lex’s sister Beulah. Chess realizes an unknown adversary is using dark magic at the school. Meanwhile Lex sees this as an opportunity as he wants to help solve the case and offers the addicted Chess free drugs like he did before. Terrible’s boss Bump who is Chess’ dealer directs her to investigate a nasty homicide in which dark magic was the murder weapon.

The latest Downside Ghosts fantasy (see City of Ghosts and Unholy Magic) is a fresh exciting thriller as the heroine struggles to uncover the identity of a rogue practitioner while her relationship with Terrible turns terrible sending her back to drug dependency. Sacrificial Magic is a great entry in a special one of a kind saga as the ghost hunter becomes the haunted hunted.

Harriet Klausner