A Criminal Magic

by Lee Kelly

"Washington, DC, 1926. While sorcery opponents have succeeded in passing the 18th Amendment, the Prohibition of magic has only invigorated the city's underworld. Smuggling rings funnel magic contraband in from the coast. Sorcerers cast illusions to aid mobsters' crime sprees. Gangs have even established secret venues called "magic havens," where the public can lose themselves in immersive magic, as well as imbibe a mind-bending and highly addictive elixir known as "the sorcerer's shine." Joan Kendrick, a young sorcerer from the back woods of Norfolk County, accepts an offer to work for DC's most notorious crime syndicate, The Shaw Gang, when her family's home is repossessed. Alex Danfrey, first-year Federal Prohibition Unit trainee with a complicated past and talents of his own, becomes tapped to go undercover and infiltrate the Shaws. Joan meets Alex at the Shaws' magic haven, and soon discovers a confidante in her fellow performer. As Alex grows closer to Joan, he begins to fall under her spell. But when a new breed of sorcerer's shine - one sorcered within the walls of the Shaws' magic haven - gets set to change the face of the underworld, Joan and Alex are forced to question their allegiances and motivations, as they become pitted against one another in a dangerous, heady game of cat-and-mouse"--

• ISBN10: 1481410334
• ISBN13: 9781481410335
• Publish Date: 2 February 2016
• Publish Status: Active
• Imprint: Gallery / Saga Press
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 432
• Language: English

Reviews

[Heather]

Prohibition in the 1920s recast as a ban on magic instead of alcohol?  Yes, please.

Magic has been driven underground.  After a person does magic they are able to focus their energy into liquid to make a magical brew called shine.  The more complicated the magic, the stronger the shine.  Speakeasies pop up where people can watch an illegal magic show and then buy the shine that the sorcerers make after the performance.  Shine can't be bottled.  It doesn't keep past a few hours.  The person who learns how to bottle it stands to make a fortune.

A group of powerful sorcerers are brought together to compete for the chance to be part of a high end speakeasy.  As the profits and the magic soars, the sorcerers find themselves kept captive by the criminal bosses that own the club.

This book had so much promise that I don't feel like it fully lived up to.  It was good but at the end there was a vague feeling that it should have been more.  It might be The Night Circus effect.  Every book that involves setting up magical venues is going to pale a bit in my mind when compared to that book.

Read this book if you are more into 1920s stories with gangsters than urban fantasy.  It much more of a criminal story than a magic-first story.  Magic is the illegal substance that fuels the crime, not an end unto itself.

There are times of great imagination and other times the grand spectacles that the sorcerers are supposed to be making fell a little flat for me.  I mean, I'm sure making a sunset out of thin air would be cool in person but this is fantasy so I'd expect something grander for the highest-end club in Washington, D.C.

 This review was originally posted on Based On A True Story

[layawaydragon]

A Criminal Magic was a fantastic read. I was especially impressed with the ending, how it all worked out, and how satisfying it actually was. I'm not usually one for loose ends.

It starts out slow, building the world around Joan and Alex.

Alex is a sort of prodigal son, a tarnished golden boy in a downward spiral of his own making. Joan on the other hand, is dealing with the destruction of her family with abuse, death, addiction, and her own damned magic.

It was interesting, but REALLY took off when Alex and Joan met and when their settings finally line up. From there it was a race to see how'd the twists would turn, who'd lived and died, who'd fried and who was freed.

But I was disappointed how white it all was, how racism was ignored despite how important a factor it is in Prohibition then and continues to influence. How would've racism played into sorcery? And sexism and misogynoir? DC is has and always been at least 50% black, where'd they all go in A Criminal Magic? Voodoo gets dragged as usual as demonic. But most black people are Christians, so where are they and how'd they reconcile their magic and religion? How'd it have changed slavery?

Couple of articles to pursue on Prohibition, Racism, and How White Women Fuck Everything Up:

Rational Wiki on Prohibition

Why Racism Flourished Under Prohibition

Prohibition, Racism and Class Politics in the Post-Reconstruction South

Prohibition: Speakeasies, Loopholes and Politics.