The Diviners (review)

Evie O'Neil's parents have finally had it with their daughter's rebellious flapper ways, so they send seventeen-year-old Evie off to stay with her uncle at the Museum of American Folklore, Superstition, and the Occult. Luckily for Evie, the museum happens to be located in New York City, which in 1926 is the height of decadence and debauchery, offering up much of Evie's favorite kind of fun. When Evie accompanies her uncle as he's consulted on a murder case, though, she finds a different kind of thrill. Alerted by the psychic powers she's long kept secret, she realizes there's a serial killer on the loose; she therefore reveals her gift to her uncle, and the two begin to hunt for the killer themselves. Smart and unapologetically snarky, Evie is a kindred if psychically gifted spirit to Haines' noir girl sleuth Iris Anderson (The Girl Is Murder, BCCB 7/11, The Girl Is Trouble, BCCB 9/12), and her crackling dialogue is a delight, leavening a disturbingly dark tale with plenty of banter. Bray has a knack for scene-setting, pulling back from Evie to offer a picture of both the excess and the poverty of the roaring twenties and to lay ominous clues that link Evie's battles with the supernatural to the economic crises that will soon take hold of the country. Readers interested in Americana will find much to occupy their Google searches here, and a few of the subplots seem to indicate future installments, a development that will certainly please fans of historical fiction and fantasy alike.