It is an intriguing premise – an underground world of disappearing witches, theatrical mediums, and real historical figures, all contained within a World War II setting. But unfortunately Cathi Unsworth’s recent historical noir novel That Old Black Magic doesn’t quite reach its potential, spreading itself too thinly across subplots and under-developed characters.
Driving this story along is Detective Sergeant Ross Spooner, a persistent police officer with a penchant for undercover operations. Spooner immerses himself in a world of occult, while attempting to track down German witch and musical hall performer, Clara Bauer. Spooner’s journey down the rabbit hole is permeated with an intensely grim atmosphere, built upon Unsworth’s incredible attention to historical detail where her writing is at its best. Her extensive research into England during the 1940’s allows her to put her own gothic spin on World War II, interweaving true historical events, such as the last conviction of a self-proclaimed medium under the British Witchcraft Act of 1735, and the unsolved murder of an anonymous woman found inside a tree trunk.
In the book’s blurb, the mystery behind the cryptic graffiti “Who put Bella in the Wych Elm?” is posed as an integral part of the story. The sheer creepiness and unknown implications of this single line has spurred theories for decades, ranging from the ordinary to the supernatural. However, this narrative hook does not come into play until two-thirds of the way through, and the subsequent enigma of the anonymous graffitist is disappointingly short-lived.
Up until this point, the story wanders from plot point to plot point, often jumping sharply and unexpectedly between locations. The result is a convoluted and confusing story that introduces bland characters, lets them go for a while, then only to bring them up again later once their significance has been forgotten. While the story does start to pick up momentum in its third act, its aforementioned flaws don’t completely disappear. Unfortunately, many subplots are either left too open-ended or altogether neglected.
Even the relationships between the main characters are vague, only blurred further by their frequent disguises and double crossings. Close attention needs to be paid to them, as it is incredibly easy to muddle up who is on good terms with whom, and how much individuals really know about each other.
At a couple of points in the novel there are brief suggestions of possible romantic inclinations between two leading characters, but given the circumstances surrounding them this ultimately feels odd and out-of-place. While there is a pay-off to this subplot that intertwines with historical events, it comes off as an awkward way to force the two stories together, serving no other purpose than to shoehorn an easy and abrupt resolution to both of them.
That Old Black Magic holds potential to be a gripping mystery novel, but it regrettably collapses beneath its own ambition to cover as much historical ground as possible. Had Unsworth decided to focus specifically on fewer characters, or alternatively given more time to flesh out each of their respective storylines, then perhaps this novel may have been more successful in its aspirations. While its strong, gothic atmosphere and intriguing take on World War II are exciting narrative elements that Unsworth obviously relishes delving into, they stand on weak foundations, making for a story that is more thrilling in theory than it is in practice.
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April 1943: four boys playing in Hagley Woods, Essex make a gruesome discovery. Inside an enormous elm tree, there is the body of a woman, her mouth stuffed with a length of cloth. As the case goes cold, mysterious graffiti starts going up across the Midlands: ‘Who put Bella in the Wych Elm?’
To Ross Spooner, a police officer working undercover for spiritualist magazine Two Worlds, the messages hold a sinister meaning. He’s been on the track of a German spy ring who have left a trail of black magic and mayhem across England, and this latest murder bears all the hallmarks of an ancient ritual.
At the same time, Spooner is investigating the case of Helen Duncan, a medium whose messages from the spirit world contain highly classified information. As the establishment joins ranks against Duncan, Spooner must face demons from his own past, uncover the spies hiding beneath the fabric of wartime society – and confront those who suspect that he, too, may not be all he seems ..
