Aloysius MacBharrais has a problem. Every apprentice he’s taken on to learn his job as a sigil agent — essentially a human who “writes and enforces magical contracts using sigils, which are symbols infused with power that do some remarkable stuff” — has died in one type of accident or another. Seven of them, in fact, the most recent being Gordie, who choked to death on a raisin scone. What makes this latest setback a more serious problem is that it seems Gordie was trafficking Fae creatures like the hobgoblin he had caged in his apartment when he died.
(Let’s pause here to get this out of the way: Different from pure goblins and more mischievous than outright malevolent, hobgoblins were extraordinarily difficult to capture as a rule, since they could teleport short distances and were agile creatures as well, with impressive vertical leaps aided by their thick thighs. If you didn’t know, now you know.)
What was Gordie up to? Who was he selling the Fae creatures to, and for what nefarious purpose? It’s up to Al to find out, before the delicate détente between the Fae and humans is broken forever.
That’s the set-up for Kevin Hearne’s highly entertaining fantasy novel, Ink & Sigil (2020). It’s the first in a new series (the next book set to be published in August 2021), but it’s set in the same universe as Hearne’s previous Iron Druid Chronicles series. Sadly, Atticus and his amazing Irish wolfhound Oberon have only a cameo appearance here, but I found the new cast of characters — Al, the Scot who runs a printing company in Glasgow between writing sigils for interactions between humans and Fae; his indispensable assistant Nadia, who has her own secret abilities; even that hobgoblin, a three-foot tall pink creature who goes by the name Buck Foi — a fun bunch to hang out with, and I was fully engaged in how Al would solve the mystery at the book’s heart and set things right.
The pen-and-stationery aficionado in me loves the idea of specially formulated inks imbuing drawn symbols with power. I could use a few Sigils of Agile Grace myself, to be honest. It’s especially pleasing that one doesn’t need to be a magical creature one’s own self to do magic — it can be learned, like any other skill. I hope Al acquires a new, less evil, apprentice in a future book and we get more details of the way sigils work.
And while this new cast stands well on its own without needing to lean on guest appearances from the Iron Druid or Oberon, I can’t help hoping we get more glimpses of them in future volumes. Although at least we did get this lovely canine tribute in Ink & Sigil:
“He survived because of a very good dug named Oberon. Dogs are beings of pure love and devotion and broadcast hope to those of us who have only memories of such things, for they demonstrate by their existence that love and devotion still walk abroad in the world, and therefore it’s worthwhile to live in it.”
Some Buried Caesar (1939) is one of the earliest Wolfe novels but already all the essential elements are in place: Wolfe’s reluctance to leave home, his extreme dislike of riding in a car (see the quote below), the rat-a-tat-tat banter between him and Archie, his ability to solve mysteries well before anyone else, his reluctance to share the solution unless there’s something in it for him. Caesar is also notable for being the book in which Archie first meets Lily Rowan, the ultra-rich New York socialite who becomes his steady companion and partner in witty banter throughout the series.
I’m always drawn to Heather Gudenkauf’s novels, including This Is How I Lied (2020), because they have interesting premises and they are set in my part of Iowa, in towns that are somewhat disguised but recognizable to me. And I always come away disappointed with vaguely drawn characters, some ridiculous plot points, and a general sloppiness that I’m more inclined to blame on her editor than on her, to be honest. Whenever an author writes in one paragraph that her character had reached through a picket fence and undone the latch to enter a backyard, then inexplicably two paragraphs later writes the character as looking into the backyard through the fence from the outside, an editor has not earned their wings. And the first-person narration shifts from present to past tense within the same sentence, then back again. Pick a lane, people!
It’s a clever takeoff on traditional sports commentary but of course what makes it so charming (beyond the very appealing Scottish accent of Mr. Cotter) are those adorable Labradors, Olive (the black one) and Mabel. It went as viral as you’d expect, ricocheting around the Internet at a time when we were all just beginning to come to terms with what the pandemic had in store for us. I loved it, promptly began following Cotter (who I confess to never having heard of, not being privy to much in the way of overseas sports broadcasting) and delighted in the occasional videos he has posted since. (If you’d like to catch up, you can find them all on his 
Oh, but that wouldn’t be much of a book, would it — let alone a mystery. And so our two young people meet again, this time at a very creepy old country house (honestly, is there any other kind in England?) that is rumored to house The Benevent Treasure (1954), brought to England when its aristocratic Italian owner fled Italy centuries ago. Candida is the black sheep of the Benevent family, through no fault of her own — her mother married a man the family did not approve of and cut all ties. Now all the Benevents are dead, except for two strange old sisters, Olivia and Cara, two strange old women who are the sisters of Candida’s long-dead grandmother. They reach out to young Candida to effect a reunion and she goes to visit, although she’s not sure what they want with her.
The client is a young woman whose mother died a few months ago in a hit-and-run car accident. After her mother’s death, Amy Denovo finds a box full of cash and a note from her mom that says, “This is from your father.” But she has no idea who her father is, and she suspects her mother was using an assumed name all these years so how can even the great Nero Wolfe and his trusty legman Archie Goodwin trace her into the past? Complicating matters, at least for Archie, is that Amy works as an editorial assistant for his paramour, Lily Rowan, but Amy insists that he not tell Lily that he and Wolfe are working for her, leading to some semi-comical misunderstanding about why Amy suddenly starts calling him Archie instead of Mr. Goodwin. It all gets sorted in the end, of course, and in a satisfactory fashion. Not many 1960s-era Wolfe novels favorites of mine, as Stout seemed determined to make up for decades of writing in a more prudish atmosphere when crafting plots that involve sex and other tawdry topics. Still, an afternoon spent with Archie Goodwin is never wasted.
Michaela (but everyone calls her Mickey) and Kacey are sisters who grew up in the kind of family that does not put the ‘fun’ in ‘dysfunctional’. Their young mother dies of a heroin overdose and their father disappears shortly after in the throes of his own addiction. They are raised by their maternal grandmother Gee, who provides them with the bare minimum of food, shelter and clothing but even less love and emotional support.
In the course of retracing the man’s footsteps, Rutledge is forced to break the news to his wife, on whom this new load of grief weighs heavily atop the still-fresh loss of her young daughter. Could the two crimes be related? And where does the dead man’s possibly mentally unstable sister come into the picture? The Inspector travels hither and yon where northwest England and northeast Wales meet. All the while, he’s got the voice of long-dead Hamish providing a running commentary in his head, as he has ever since the wretched day during the war when the Scotsman died while serving under Rutledge in the Army. Rutledge knows Hamish isn’t really there, but it doesn’t make the ghostly voice any easier to bear …
In that not-so-distant future, rampant climate change has wreaked havoc on the Earth. Coastal regions of North America have fallen prey to the rising seas, and the seismic shifts have ruptured pipelines and sent pollution spilling across the landscape. The resulting hordes of refugees have strained resources in the habitable areas that remain and sparked wars and societal disruption.