Magic and the Shinigami Detective is one of those books I bought on a whim because I liked the title. I then proceeded to forget about it for a while and by the time I started reading it I had no idea what I was getting into.

What I got was a charming and magical detective novel.

After an introductory chapter the meat of the story is told through the casefiles of Henri Davenfort, a magical crime scene investigator. The world is roughly a 1920s with magic, though science is beginning to make itself felt. Henri’s job is to use a mix of both to investigate crime scenes and deduce what happened. Honestly the first scene with him, where he explains why a fire wasn’t caused by magic and was instead an electrical fire, is a lot of fun and sets the scene nicely.

But however interesting Davenfort’s crime scene prowess is, it’s not what the story is about. That is Jamie Edwards, an ex-secret officer who got summoned into this world from ours by a witch for experimentation purposes. She finally escapes by killing said witch and, with nothing else to do, join the police force.

The story is fuelled by the interactions between Davenfort and Edwards as they become partners and get set on cracking a case. They both have their own way of doing things, Davenfort having studied magic and Edwards knowing modern scientific methods, and watching the two mesh was very satisfying. It’s a nice mystery as well, jumping from exciting plot point to exciting plot point and introducing a wide variety of characters as it does. This is complimented by a nice, up beat writing style. Honestly, it was just a lot of fun to read.

It’s a nice start to a series and I look forward to reading more.