THE HEXOLOGISTS

Married couple Isolde and Warren Wilby, Hexologists and private investigators, must solve a royal mystery before the kingdom collapses into chaos in the first book in a new series.

When the royal secretary interrupts the Wilbies’ teatime because the king is asking to be baked alive into a cake, it’s just a normal day for the magical investigators. It seems a blackmailer’s claim of an illegitimate heir is driving the king mad. Iz wants nothing to do with royalty, but Warren reminds her that an unrecognized heir creates a power vacuum, which means Luthland's vulnerable will suffer all the more. When a forest golem breaks down the cellar door and heads straight for the royal secretary, that seals the deal: The Wilbies take the case. Magic exists in the Wilbies’ world, one strikingly similar to London during the Industrial Revolution, and Iz is a student of hexegy—the casting of hexes. With Iz’s powers and Warren’s social skills, as well as a large cast of side characters that includes a librarian, a foodie dragon who lives inside a magic carpetbag full of relics, and an alcoholic imp, the mystery unravels into stranger and stranger revelations. If the Hexologists can’t solve the case quickly, it could tear the kingdom apart—literally and figuratively. While the book gets off to a promising start, with action and intrigue bathed in delightfully wry humor, the language soon begins to feel like it's had a wrestling match with a thesaurus. The pacing and clarity sometimes suffer from this cleverness, though the main characters are likable and what you’d expect from a quick-quipping husband-and-wife investigative team. They aren’t unique, but they are fun. If Bancroft had spent more time developing them instead of jumping from one side character to another and given them real obstacles instead of a too-convenient history/tool/hex to solve every problem that arises, this book could have been top-notch. As it stands, this magical tale—ultimately about classism and justice—should still find an audience in need of a chuckle and a mystery to solve.

Characters and humor make this magic-meets-steampunk novel worth checking out despite its shortcomings.