Thieves’ Quarry

Boston in 1768 is a city under embargo, with British troops preparing to occupy its streets. Amid the swell of rebellion, thieftaker and conjurer Ethan Kaille (first met in 2012’s Thieftaker) wakes one morning to feel the reverberation of a mighty spell. Soon the authorities are seeking his aid to find out who or what killed the entire complement of a British warship. Under threat from a colonial government frightened by the idea of witches of mass destruction, Ethan has but days to piece together the mystery and deal with his nemesis, rival thieftaker Sephira Pryce, who is armed with her own conjurer and some nasty bully boys. Jackson (a pseudonym for David B. Coe, the Blood of the Southlands trilogy) deftly blends history and fiction in a tangle of alliances (including loyalist Ethan teaming with a Royal Navy surgeon sympathetic to the rebels) amid Ethan’s moral conflicts over the uses of magic and drawing friends into the dangers of questionable work. (July)