Sanctuary

I thought this book by V.V. James was really well-done, keeping me up late into the morning hours to finish. The small Connecticut town of Sanctuary got it's name when the local populace successfully drove all the witches out at the height of the mass hysteria about witches in the late 17th and early 18th century. But in this book, in more modern times, witches are licensed and more or less accepted and many in the town's population have taken advantage of Sarah Fenn's magic--their resident witch. Sarah's daughter, Harper, is 17 and graduating from high school. Sarah was devastated when she learned, on Harper's 13th birthday, that she did not have the "gift."

At the high school graduation party in a rented house, Daniel Whitman, the school's promising quarter back, falls from the 2nd floor landing and the house catches fire. Student flee the burning building and Daniel is left behind. His mother goes mad with grief and then rage. A detective from the state polic, Maggie Knight, who was assigned to this town once before in years past, is brought in for the investigation and, initially, everyone thinks this is a tragic accident. But then Jake, Dan's sycophantic friend and also the son of Sanctuary's chief of police, shows his father a video clip and swears that ex-girlfriend Harper killed Dan with magic. Everyone swears Harper has no magic abilities, but Harper has made herself scarce in town--understandably--so Maggie tries to keep the lid on emotions in town until more evidence is obtained. She brings in a witch investigator who verifies that magic was used. Sarah is the only registered witch in town and she swears her daughter has no power and, she was at a dinner party with her three closest friends, who include Dan's mother, at the time the fall and fire happened. But the witch hunt is on and people who have relied on Sarah begin to turn on her and she is no longer safe in Sanctuary.

The ending was not at all what I expected. Publishers Weekly gave the book a glowing review, calling it a "riveting mystery," and concluding that author James' "Assured prose and a tight plot lift this tale ...[and]  is off to a fine start."

Here is an interview with author Vic James about the writing of Sanctuary and the TV series that was made from it.