Hexit Strategy

HEXIT STRATEGY

Everwand is not your typical retirement home. True, it has the usual trappings-comfortable chairs, draughty corridors, and the gentle whiff of liniment, but it also houses a select cadre of elderly gentlemen whose past careers involved summoning storms, bending reality, and occasionally turning one another into toads. Under the steady hand of the unflappable Erasmus Vane (retired vampire, two hundred years in the job and still no sign of slowing) and the indefinable but industrious manservant Mr Crake, the place usually hums along in peaceful, arcane eccentricity.

Usually.

An impending inspection has Mr Vane in such a state that even Mr Crake has begun to look concerned - no small feat, given that Mr Crake has been known to face down uppity tradesmen with no more than a raised eyebrow. And matters worsen considerably when Everwand is outmanoeuvred into accepting a new resident: a witch. A female witch. Into an establishment historically as male as a briar pipe and twice as stubborn.

The gentlemen are horrified. The atmosphere curdles. Lines are duly crossed.

Then the constabulary arrive, poking their noses into an ongoing scandal involving Lady Ragnall's missing silver spoons. The self-important Everwand French chef fumes in the kitchen, convinced he is surrounded by culinary illiterates. And in the midst of this rising domestic chaos, one of the residents dies.

Then another.

These are not natural passings. These are murders - creative ones, unsettling ones, the sort that leave even experienced wizards clutching their medallions of defence and muttering protective incantations under their breath. The obvious suspect is Tallis Woodhollow, the newly arrived witch with a suspiciously calm but (as far as all the wizards are concerned), irksome manner. But the obvious answer is rarely the right one at Everwand. Something deeper - and darker - is stirring. And if Inspector Munro and Constable Peach (bless him - he doesn't look a day over twelve) can't untangle the mystery in time, the retirement home may find itself permanently retired.

A comic murder mystery woven with magic, mischief, and mayhem, Hexit Strategy is perfect for readers who enjoy their fantasy sharp, their mysteries sly, and their cats both unhelpful and omnipresent (and possibly French).