LitPick Review
A Dangerous Magic is a book about a fifteen-year-old sorcerer, Frank Sampson. The story is set in old time England, and sorcerers are hated by just about everyone, which makes normal day-to-day things hard for Frank to do without getting singled out and beaten up. Things are about to get much harder for Frank, though. As the junior forensic sorcerer on the police force, he gets called in to examine some weird things, but what comes next is a first. After being retrieved by a girl with certain abilities named Marvell, he walks in the door of where the victim was found. When he sees him, though, he stops short. The victim appears to have lost his head…literally. The victim was beheaded, but the head is nowhere in sight. There doesn’t appear to be anything too special about the case, except for the obvious, but Frank doesn’t believe in anything being this simple. He is determined to get to the bottom of the case, even if it means using every method of getting information at his disposal, including some less than savory magical acts.
Opinion:
I thought A Dangerous Magic was a very unique book. The mix of suspense, magic (including demon summoning), and drama was delightful, and delivered in just the right dose. This is the first book I have seen that pairs magic so closely with science, oftentimes having the two work together in some way. It’s also very interesting that the police force didn’t just have sorcerers that were magical, but it also had some other special people called Tatties. These people could not only notice things that others couldn’t, but could also gain magical insight into certain cases on occasion. The book also had fairly nice flow; it didn’t seem to get caught at a point and lose its momentum. There was some language and other mature content, so I would recommend this book to ages 13 and up.
