A Criminal Magic — Lee Kelly

Magic is powerful, dangerous and addictive - and after passage of the 18th Amendment, it is finally illegal.

It's 1926 in Washington, DC, and while Anti-Sorcery activists have achievedthe Prohibition of sorcery, the city's magic underworld is booming.Sorcerers cast illusions to aid mobsters' crime sprees. Smugglersfunnel magic contraband in from overseas. Gangs have established secret performance venues where patrons can lose themselves in magic, and take a mind-bending, intoxicating elixir known as the sorcerer's shine.

Joan Kendrick, a young sorcerer from Norfolk County, Virginia accepts anoffer to work for DC's most notorious crime syndicate, the Shaw Gang,when her family's home is repossessed. Alex Danfrey, a first-yearFederal Prohibition Unit trainee with a complicated past and talents ofhis own, becomes tapped to go undercover and infiltrate the Shaws.

Through different paths, Joan and Alex tread deep into the violent, dangerousworld of criminal magic - and when their paths cross at the Shaws'performance venue, despite their orders, and despite themselves, Joanand Alex become enchanted with one another. But when gang alliancesbegin to shift, the two sorcerers are forced to question their ultimateallegiances and motivations. And soon, Joan and Alex find themselvespitted against each other in a treacherous, heady game of cat-and-mouse.

A CRIMINAL MAGIC casts a spell of magic, high stakes and intrigue against the backdrop of a very different Roaring Twenties.