MORGAN HEWITT

Morgan Hewitt is an agent with the Hermetic Division of MI-6.

If you have never heard of that branch, consider yourself lucky. It was started back in the days of the Cold War largely because the other side had theirs. In a world where the arms race meant getting any and all weaponry needed to destroy the other side, it was not surprising that one side would start to use the power of the occult, which meant that the opposition had to as well just stay even. That is what the Hermetic Division did for British Intelligence.

Hewitt was like most of the world, ignorant of this strange department and would have likely have preferred to stay that way. He, unfortunately, had two "traits" that would bring him to the Division's attention.

The first was that he was darn good at getting the job done, regardless of the mission. He was a soldier in the British Army, a skilled sniper, and willing to do whatever it took to find and eliminate whomever he was assigned. Such skill and tenacity was not something to squander.

The second was that he was "cursed". Not in the way that some of those in the Hermetic Division were (more on that next) but because of his unfortunate "luck" of getting his partner maimed or killed in the process. It was not that he was inept or careless in any way - things just happened. A ricochet of a bullet or shrapnel from an enemy grenade or just a fluke accident and whoever he was teamed with went down. This made him someone no one wanted to be hooked up with.

Which is how, in the first recorded adventure we have, he was assigned to work with someone he couldn't get killed. The reason was simple - that person was already dead. Tomas was his name and he had died twenty years before and then come back for one last mission. That would be with Hewitt.

Several decades ago, I was a huge fan of the occult. I was not a believer and certainly not a practitioner but I loved scary monsters in the dark. No slasher stuff, mind you, like Freddie Kruger or Friday the 13th but vampires and werewolves and ghosts and witches. Dark Shadows had a devotee in me as did Dracula. I loved watching it on the screen and reading about it in anything I could find.

That would fade away as I moved into action adventures and then into my passion now, spy novels. But that old flame never completely died and now when I can find the odd (in more ways than one) series that combines the two, I am like a teenager again eager to delve into the "unknown" and "unspeakable".

For a little while. And that is what we get here. Two very interesting novels that blend the genres nicely. Spooky meets spooks. What more could you want, except maybe another book or two about the Hermetic Division and Morgan Hewitt.