The Hexologists

368 pages

English language

Published Aug. 10, 2023 by Orbit.

ISBN:
978-0-316-44330-2
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4 stars (1 review)

The first book in a wildly entertaining new fantasy series from acclaimed author Josiah Bancroft where a married couple team up to solve magical, and often quite odd, mysteries.

The Hexologists, Iz and Warren Wilby, are quite accustomed to helping desperate clients with the bugbears of city life. Aided by hexes and a bag of charmed relics, the Wilbies have recovered children abducted by chimney-wraiths, removed infestations of barb-nosed incubi, and ventured into the Gray Plains of the Unmade to soothe a troubled ghost. Well-acquainted with the weird, they never shy away from a challenging case.

But when they are approached by the royal secretary and told the king pleads to be baked into a cake--going so far as to wedge himself inside a lit oven--the Wilbies soon find themselves embroiled in a mystery that could very well see the nation turned on its head. Their effort to expose a …

2 editions

On using Hexes to investigate the case of a King who wants to be cooked.

4 stars

A fascinating book (apparently the first in a series) set in a Victorian-era world involving two investigators that use Hexes to solve crimes. Well, only Iz Ann Always Wilby (hah!) uses Hexes, while her husband has his own resources. And their current investigation is a doozy, involving a King who wants to be cooked, a possible bastard son, and various spirits and denizens of other worlds. Like most investigative stories, the clues are there, but it would be a challenge for the reader to solve it before Iz does, even with the various Hexes and other magical incantations and objects shown and explained.

The story starts with the King's cooking situation explained by his secretary and a letter from the apparent bastard son, before action explodes on to the scene (literally). Iz and her husband are then off to investigate the origins of the possible son. But it becomes clear …