by Tina Whittle
I’m a mystery novelist — it’s my profession now, my nine to five, and I enjoy it very much, especially the part where I get to slip into points of view far more exotic than my own. I enjoy reading speculative fiction for that same reason, especially the genre where talented witches vanquish evil doers with their mad magickal skillz.
But as much as I enjoy watching Harry Dresden shoot fireballs from his fingertips, I found myself longing for a detective story where the crime-solving witch was someone more like . . . well, me. I cannot conjure flaming spheres of destruction. A full Patronus spell is beyond my pay grade too, as is levitation. Like most witches, however, I work with magick every day, with great success. How would a witch like me solve a mystery?
The result of that pondering was the short story “A Fox in the Hand.” It was recently selected by Crime City Central to be featured in their podcast. It’s a rather gentle bit of crime fiction — no corpses, just a stolen ceremonial dagger — and it features a witchy protagonist armed with only her wits and a rather nice Lenormand deck. There’s also a Siamese named Puff Daddy and a cute cop and some musings on holding on and letting go and the magic that lives in the heart of the mundane.
If you’d like to download the story, or listen to it on streaming audio, you can find it here: http://crimecitycentral.com/crime-city-central-no-102-tina-whittle/
Tina Whittle is mystery novelist/freelance writer working in the Low Country of Southeast Georgia. She is a recent W5 graduate and serves as co-editor of The Temple Bell. You can learn more about her and her writing at http://www.tinawhittle.com.