The Mystic’s Accomplice (A Mystic’s Accomplice mystery, 1)
The Mystic’s Accomplice begins Mary Miley’s new mystery series, set in Prohibition-era Chicago.
Maddie Pastore’s one-eye-open, one-eye-closed life implodes when her husband, a mob man, is murdered and a shattering secret revealed. Pregnant, penniless, and evicted from her home, she faces a world that has little to offer single young mothers.
A melodramatic setup, but Maddie spares us the soggy hankies. Determined not to get help from her husband’s former employers, she ends up surveilling seance clients for a spiritualist, so when the dearly beloveds manifest, the medium’s messages ring true. But Maddie’s investigations turn over secrets deadlier than the dead themselves.
Miley’s heroine avoids all-too familiar female character arcs of historical fiction. Maddie doesn’t blossom from submissive and/or coddled to feisty and self-reliant. She doesn’t learn to shoot a gun; she doesn’t become a tycoon or hook up with one. When overwhelmed, she often climbs out of the hole by grabbing a helping hand. Her mission isn’t to save worlds or seize a crown. It’s simple, maybe humble; it bears the grandeur of Everywoman: to make a decent place in the world for herself and her baby.
Maddie’s story stays nimble with a colorful mix of characters, from the eccentric and not entirely fraudulent medium to kind-hearted, cold-blooded mobsters, to cameos by historical figures such as Al Capone and Jane Addams. With adept historical detail to immerse the reader in the rough and tumble world of 1920s Chicago, this series promises good reading ahead.
