Sometimes things are not as they appear, especially when religion, magic, and shady dealings mix.

It’s 1908, and itinerant spirit medium Madame Ilsa von Hoffmann is at the end of her professional rope, facing down two unappealing options: join an ill-conceived commune founded by some fellow trans ex-vaudevillians, or take on a high-paying but mysterious job offered by a religious extremist in Salt Lake City. Madame Ilsa opts for Utah and the employ of one Roger Marsh who, it turns out, wants her to summon the ghost of Joseph Smith, Mormonism’s founder, to give his blessing to Marsh’s fledgling offshoot of the mainstream church.

Unsure how she’ll pull off this near-impossible task, Ilsa finds an ally in Francie Bream, an East Coast journalist in town to profile Mormon women at the dawn of the twentieth century. Bream’s motives remain obscure to Ilsa, though she begins to suspect the journalist has an agenda far more sinister than she could have imagined. Complicating the situation further are an inept and volatile henchman, a relentlessly orthodox Mormon apostle, a copper magnate with a fetish for polygamists, Marsh’s rogue third wife, and a vengeful private investigator from Ilsa’s past. As dead bodies accumulate around her, Madame Ilsa worries less and less about saving her career, and more about making it out of Salt Lake City alive.

My Review

Three of the things I love best in a book – religion, magic, and shady dealings. Add to that a medium, seances and murder, all wrapped up in a Gothic mystery, and you have the perfect recipe for my favourite literary concoction.

The year is 1908, and our main character, Madame Ilsa von Hoffmann, a spiritualist medium, has fallen on hard times. Then she is hired by Roger Marsh, a Mormon elder who has been excommunicated by the church for refusing to accept that polygamy is no longer legal. He has three wives. He wants Ilsa to raise the spirit of Joseph Smith, who founded the Mormon religion. But is Ilsa a fraud?

I once attended a ‘seance’ for a podcast, where we learnt how it was all done including why it was always dark and attendees stayed together round the table. Mediums kept props in their dresses, in pockets or sewn into the lining. The seance scene later in the book is a triumph, absolutely brilliant.

I just LOVED this book. The characters, the setting, the mystery. Each of the main characters is richly drawn and has their own story. My favourite was probably journalist Francie Bream, who is writing an article on Mormon women, but appears to have a more sinister agenda.

Incidentally, the title of the book is taken from a Mormon dime novel and yes, that really was a thing. Like a Victorian Mills & Boon.

About the Author

T.I.M. Wirkus (they/them) is the author of the novels The Infinite Future and City of Brick and Shadow. Their novella, Sandy Downs, won the 2013 Quarterly West novella contest. Their short fiction has appeared in The Best American Non-Required Reading and elsewhere. They hold a PhD in creative writing and literature from the University of Southern California.

A Bad Deal in Mormon Land is their third novel.