Madelyn Alt The Trouble with Magic

The Trouble with Magic

Madelyn Alt

Berkley, Jan 2006, $6.99, 272 pp.

ISBN 0425207463

Sleepy Stony Mill, Indiana holds many secrets that the majority of the residents are unaware of including Maggie O'Neil but she will shortly find out about one of them and her life will never be the same. She works in a collection agency, a job she hates. One morning instead of going directly to work she feels pulled to heading to town on the road that will lead her to River Street and the exclusive stores there.

It starts pouring so looking for a store that is open she literally falls into Enchantments, an antique shop owned by Felicity Down. Maggie and Felicity hit it off and when Felicity's officers a job, she reveals she is a practicing witch. Maggie doesn't believe in the New Age mumbo jumbo but accepts the job. On her very first day, Felicity gets a call from her estranged sister and leaves Maggie in charge. When Felicity arrives at her sister's house, she finds her sibling murdered. The police believe Felicity is the killer but Maggie believes she is innocent; she intends to find out who the murderer is.

THE TROUBLE WITH MAGIC is a bewitching amateur sleuth tale with touches of the paranormal. Although Maggie wants to deny the existence of ESP she can't convince herself that the voices she hears or the ability to feel other people's emotions are the products of an insane mind. Felicity believes she has talent and drives Maggie into the writer of her group N.I. Ghts (Northeast Indian Ghost Hunting and Tracking Society) since the small town contains spirits only sensitives can feel or hear. There are many suspects with viable motives as Maggie as a loyal friend refuses to let Felicity take the fall for something she didn't do. Forecasting the future, Madelyn Alt has a surefire winner on hands.

Harriet Klausner