Magic for Liars by Sarah Gailey

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


I would not have picked this book up if it were not a book club pick. I am glad that I read it. It was an interesting mix of urban fantasy and mystery novel, with a bent toward noir. A non-magic private investigator is called in to figure out the murder of a staff member at a prestigious school for wizards.

It’s a good idea. The characters are a mix of adults and students. It is unlike another, well known wizarding school in that the students aren’t the ones solving the mystery. The students don’t outwit the adults. They don’t “luck” into clues and dash about like a Scooby-Doo cartoon (in one door and out another). There is a real feel of grit in here ~ thus the “noir” part. Kids use their gifts to do the sort of things that kids do – love notes, graffiti, pranks… and it adds to the mix.

Ivy is the main character / non-magical investigator. She makes a lot of bad choices. I would have been on board with her… until. I’m not going to spoil any parts of the plot here in the review, but there’s a singular time in the story that I can point to when I was “bumped away” from this character. Up to that point I was fine, after that I was just disappointed. What it does is show a very real and believable character, so I understand that it’s my own desire to read characters that are somehow slightly more heroic than ordinary folks that caused me to dislike her.

This is also a murder mystery. I don’t read enough of the mystery genre to have figured this one out early on in the book, but there were many clues. There were also a fair number of red herrings along the way – some of which I totally went for, so that part was well done.

In all, I’m glad I read it but I don’t suspect I’d be rushing back for more.



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Something I didn’t add to my review over on Goodreads is any commentary about the cover art. Since this was a book club choice I was also aware of imagery in the text. I frequently look for scenes that inspire a look or a view that would make great art. I usually attempt to use that inspiration to create a piece of art that relates to the book that we can use for the cover of our fanzine. This book had very, very little in the way of imagery. There was maybe one scene that could have been used and it was a little bit of a spoiler for the story. I stayed away. I think that lack of image, the dull visual if you will that was a part of making the story less appealing to me than it could have been. I like watching the “movie” of the story in my head while I read and this book just didn’t have as much to offer there as a number of other things we’ve read did.