"Advent" by James Treadwell, Atria/Emily Bestler Books, 464 pages, $26.
In 1537, Johann Faust, a great magician, carries a box in a snowstorm. It contains a portion of his soul and a small ring that holds all the magic in the world.
Present day Gavin Stokes, 15, boards a train to visit his aunt. He has been expelled from school and his parents can't cope with him. He insists that he sees a woman that nobody else can see.
The chapters alternate between Faust and Gavin, who is next in line to be the great magician. The Faust segments are drawn out and uninteresting. Gavin's chapters start out well, but he is overcome with self-pity for most of the book. This is the first in a trilogy.
***
"An Unmarked Grave" by Charles Todd, William Morrow, 272 pages, $24.99.
This is the fourth in the Bess Crawford series. She is a battlefield nurse during World War I.
It is 1918 and the Spanish flu epidemic is killing millions. The battlefield hospitals have as many flu patients as they do war injury patients.
Private Wilson goes to Bess one day and asks her to go with him. Among the dead to be buried is the body of a man who was murdered. Maj. Vincent Carlson, the dead man, is someone she knows.
But Bess comes down with the flu and is too ill to remain in France. She is sent home to recover. When she recovers, she learns that Wilson is also dead and that he committed suicide. As she investigates, she becomes the killer's target.
This is a good mysteries series with interesting characters.
