Early Reviewers David Steven Rappoport

Amateur sleuth Cummings Flynn Wanamaker (named for Errol Flynn and E. E. Cummings because his mother liked swordplay and his father liked wordplay) attends the monthly meeting of a steampunk occult group in Chicago. There, a speaker combusts - perhaps spontaneously. Meanwhile, in rural Maine, a body is discovered in a boat. In this funny and eccentric mystery, Cummings navigates quirky clues and characters to solve these connected crimes: an ethereal gay romance novelist; a broken-down recluse who once wrote Cold War thrillers; assorted occultists with assumed names; a museum devoted to ephemera; a pagan reliquary; and fetid feta cheese.