Working as a freelance graphic designer and reading tarot cards on the side, white witch Karen "Bast" Hightower turns detective to learn why a close friend has died suddenly and must infiltrate New York's occult underground. Reprint.

The heroine of Speak Daggers to Her returns in her second mystery, in which Bast, the mostly modern witch and amateur detective, investigates the murder of a bookstore owner in downtown Manhattan.

Hallowfest, an outdoor pagan festival held every October in upstate New York, attracts all kinds of people, not to mention a few curious onlookers and the occasional protester. But when a local resident is mysteriously murdered, Bast (a.k.a. Karen Hightower) finds that her suspects include several modern-day witches, and enigmatic magician, a gun-toting survivalist, a dominatrix, an incorrigible ex-boyfriend, and even a few would-be Klingons. Can Bast discover which witch dunit - before the entire festival falls under a cloud of suspicion?

Rosemary Edghill cast a keenly observant, friendly, yet faintly amused eye on an intriguing American micro-culture. The Bast novels offer a very new view of the practitioners of a very old faith. Edghill allows that there's still magic in the air. Rosemary Edghill's Bast novels are a real treat. Bell, Book, and Murder contains all three Bast novels, Speak Daggers to Her, Book of Moons, and the first softcover edition of The Bowl of Night (excerpted in USA Today ).