The Witches' Bane - Ahern, Edward

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Résumé :
Gordon Lormor is a defrocked priest and con man. And something more. He treads a path between light and dark magic, a risky journey he avoids unless he's required to take it. But his ex-girlfriend makes a fear-laced telephone call to him, pleading that he come to Vermont and free her from a witches' coven. Gordon leaves his business, Profane Possibilities, in the care of his assistant and drives north. Death arrives before he does, and Gordon tasks himself with solving the murder and eradicating the coven. As his situation worsens, he asks for help from both his decidedly unfeminine assistant AJ and a Catholic cardinal. Death revisits often as Gordon, joined by AJ, picks open the protective scab the witches have clotted over their activities. He teeters further and further over the edges of physical and spiritual death as he struggles to prevent infant sacrifice and solve the murder of the woman he had loved....

Biographie:
Ed Ahern sometimes detours into literary fiction and poetry, but he's best known as an innovative genre writer. He's tucked away several awards and honorable mentions for seventy-seven short stories and three books. The stories have appeared in ten countries and, counting reprints, a hundred fifty-nine publications. His stories can be listened to through Audible and the New York Public Library. And he started writing fiction at sixty-seven.

His editorial skills are based on a degree in journalism from the University of Illinois and extensive experience at the Providence Journal. Ed's been honing the skills for several years at Bewildering Stories, where he serves on the review board and as review editor with a staff of five. (Bewildering Stories is widely known for the author-friendly quality of its critiques.)

Ed also serves as the newsletter editor for the Connecticut River Salmon Association. He's a member of several writing groups, including the Fairfield Scribes, where he's known for his tough-love comments.

He has his original wife, but advises that after fifty years together they are both out of warranty. Two children and five grandchildren serve as affection focus and money drain.

His work career after university has been an enjoyably demented hopscotch game. U.S. Navy officer (diver and bomb disarmer)...