The Old Religion - Martyn Waites

 

This is something that I randomly borrowed from the library after searching for something else - probably because years ago I wrote a song by the same name - this refers to Paganism, which is a theme for the book.

This is a pretty light weight mystery with a handsome leading man who is in witness protection in a small town in northern England, where he works at a bar and keeps a low profile. This goes awry when he tries to help a young woman who escapes from a local cult after she helps kidnap a visiting student. Add to this a local leader of a Pagan cult whose spells has helped the populace (with some unforeseen consequences - at least unforeseen by the people who uses the spells) and you get a twisted tale of violence, murder, multiple kidnappings and more, which, of course, the handsome leading man helps to solve, although there are prices that everyone involved pays.

Waites makes a point of not gender-identifying the cult leader which, of course, makes you believe that it is a woman - surprise, it is - although I did not guess who it was since the character was incidental up until the reveal. 

Not bad, but nothing particularly special either, which is kinda funny as Waites has made a series with the main character.