The mystery genre seems to be a thriving hotbed of stories involving modern Pagans. A quick search through Amazon reveals at least five authors with mystery series set in modern Pagandom: Rosemary Edghill (pen name of eluki bes sahar), M. R. Sellars, Dolores Stewart Riccio, Annette Blair and Madelyn Alt. I read very few mysteries, but I did find and read Edghill’s Bast Mysteries and the first couple of Sellar’s Rowan Gant Investigations shortly after they came out. I believe that Edghill kicked off the subgenre, but if anyone knows of earlier works, I’d love to hear of them.
Today, however, we’ll focus on the first three books of Alt’s Bewitching Mysteries. Alt is still actively producing this series: the most recent book was released in April and the next is scheduled for January. These books are mysteries and so the plot is: someone gets killed and the protagonist figures out whodunit. I shan’t discuss the plots more than tangentially in these reviews. Instead, I am more interested in how Paganism is depicted and how our religion and related issues (like magic) are integrated into the stories.
I am finding Alt’s books absolutely charming. The Bast books were great, but Karen Hightower (Bast) is drifting away from a coven-based tradition towards a faith which is less structured throughout the series. Alt’s Maggie O’Neill, on the other hand, is a small-town Catholic girl slaving at a dehumanizing call-center who, while seeking shelter from a storm, lands ass-first across the threshold of Enchantments, a antique store which includes an occult shop on the second floor. Maggie is quickly hired by the store’s owner Felicity Dow (Liss), an English émigré and Witch (one presumes Gardnarian, but it’s not made explicit in the first three books, though Maggie is reading a quote from Valiente from Liss’ books by p.23). Maggie is clearly a sensitive and is identified as an empath by Liss, and so any important part of the series is Maggie’s discovering Wicca and being drawn to a new faith. The books are, in part, a conversion narrative.
A second reason that I find the series charming is more personal: it is set in a small town of some 6,000 in Northeastern Indiana, and I was born maybe 25 miles away in Kokomo. We moved away when I was seven, but the town’s fixation on basketball and the other details of small-town life all ring true.
The Trouble with Magic is a basic introduction to the town of Stony Mill and more characters than Alt particularly knows what to do with. In addition to Liss and Maggie’s immediate family (one brother and one sister, two nieces, Mom, Dad and Grandpa), the book presents the 29-year old unmarried Maggie with two obvious potential suitors: a strait-laced, probably evangelical police officer, Tom, and the dark, handsome and dangerous (He wears leather! He’s a former military intelligence officer! He makes knives!) Marcus who is probably the High Priest of Liss’ coven. Alt also introduces an entire cast of paranormal investigators, the N.I.G.H.T.S. (Northeastern Indiana Ghost Hunting & Tracking Society) which include the brownie-baking proprietress of a favorite new local eatery, a butch former nun, a tech wiz, and an Amish dowser in addition to Liss and Marcus.
I am tempted to criticize the inclusion of N.I.G.H.T.S. as being a bit extraneous to both the themes of the novels and the plots, but paranormal research has always been a neighbor of modern Paganism. And such material has been successfully incorporated into other novels like Bradley’s gothic novels (Ghostlight, Witchlight, Heartlight and Gravelight). Furthermore, when I searched for the full name of the acronym for this article, I discovered that there seems to be several similar groups in Indiana, and so the group’s appearance in the novel seems to be thoroughly apropos to the setting.
The victim of the first novel is Liss’ estranged sister, and the Liss quickly becomes the primary suspect. Maggie immediately leaps to Liss’ defense despite having only worked for Liss for a few days. Maggie doesn’t quite know what to make of the Witches and ghost-hunters at that point, but she is open-minded enough to see that religious prejudice is a part of what is driving Tom’s focus on Liss in his investigation of the murder.
Maggie is a bit of an accidental detective. The network of relationships within her small town tend to place her conveniently where she will receive the clues to solve the mystery. And yet from another perspective there are no accidents: there are powers within Maggie that are seeking to be expressed, and she is drawing events and people towards her that will help her accept herself and actualize those powers. In this first book, she hears voices that help her at a crucial juncture in the case.
Maggie’s magical powers emerge a bit more fully in the second novel of the series, A Charmed Death. The victim in this book is a teen, and we get to see a bit of the town’s high school and two additional people are drawn into the Enchantments community: teen girls Evie and Tara. Maggie continues to lust for Marcus, but pursue and prefer Tom. Tom is, after all, the far more respectable choice to present to her Mom. Most Pagans will be screaming for Maggie to drop the lawman far earlier even than I, but it is fairly clear that Maggie is slowly stepping into her power both as a witch and woman in these books, and, while its clear to us that she is headed in the right direction, it is not clear to her at all.
One thing that Alt consistently gets right is her portrayal of the Pagan community. Liss, as the community leader, is open, consistent and clear about what she believes and always leaves the door open for Maggie. While Maggie’s mom is consistently pressing Maggie to get to Mass in the same way that she presses Maggie to get to her gynecological examinations, Liss is much more, “Here’s what’s happening: you’re always welcome to come.”
Given the magical experiences that Maggie has in the course of these novels, it is tempting wonder why Maggie does not become a Pagan more quickly. And yet, when I consider my own process at roughly the same age as Maggie, it was five years between my first starting to read all I could find on the topic and my finding a teacher and going to my first ritual. And so while it is tempting to scorn Maggie for not immediately asking Liss to teach her everything (and, btw, jumping Marcus for a hearty introduction to The Great Rite), Maggie’s more measured approach seems correct for her character.
The third novel, Hex Marks the Spot turns its attention to the local Amish community and its folk magic. Maggie and Tom’s tepid romance continues to fail to reach a boil while Maggie’s Mom applies more pressure to meet the new “boyfriend”. Maggie and Marcus had shared a mutual, passionate, but unexpected kiss in the previous book, and so Maggie is avoiding the N.I.G.H.T.S. for most of the book.
Maggie’s magical powers continue to blossom in realistic ways. She reaches out to the sprit of the victim, for instance, and gains an insight that helps solve the case. I am always kind of wishing that Liss would teach her some decent shielding spells to filter out unwanted emotional signals, but I always have to remind myself that the first three novels only span eight months, and so this period is really just the beginning of her training in a lot of ways.
I will now spoil the ending of the book. Not the whodunit. Even better than the usual resolution of the case is the fact that the book ends with Maggie going to her first Sabbat. Beltane! Whoohoo! Maggie with flowers in her hair! Marcus in tight leather breeches! Dancing! May!
I thoroughly recommend the series to The Jugglers. Alt is yet a journeyman in the genre at this point, and mystery fans may find the mysteries themselves a bit average. But I’ve seldom found a fictional representation of Paganism that is so true to all that is good about the community and the Old Religion. I am looking forward to the rest of the series, and will cover the most recent three books eventually in Part II.
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