'Ninth House' Keeps Watch Over Bloody Mysteries
Leigh Bardugo's new stand-alone thriller is set at a dark, twisty alternate version of Yale, where the famed secret societies practice world-manipulating magic — with sometimes deadly results.
Grungy magic is the best kind of magic. Grungy, dirty, street-side magic — hard-earned, poorly understood, wild and dangerous. I have little use these days for old beardos in pointy wizard hats, for powerful ancient necromancers or prancing elves.
Give me a ritual for an unbreakable pre-nup. A glamor to cloud the minds of security guards. A haruspex up to his elbows in blood, scrying the guts of a schizophrenic stolen from his bed in a New Haven reading buy and hold orders for the NASDAQ. Give me a troubled girl (read: violent girl, ex-junkie girl, and a small-time drug dealer, too)
