I am a huge fan of Cleggs and always heard this one is one of his best. Unfortunately, that rumor didn't prove to me to be true.

The story held promise, in a way - its fun to read about witches from older times and some of the characters, like Maddie, are easy to latch on to. For the bad side of things, other characters weren't given the focus they deserved, the story was muddled and poorly paced too much of the time, and a lot of it was just plain confusing.

The style is a bit too distant and literary, and some of the action in certain scenes was uneven. The ending was a slight saving grace, being strong with it's impact. If you're a fan of Clegg, give this one a try, but if you're a virgin of his work, try another by him instead. ( )

Provided you can outlast the first few heavily stylized chapters, you might find an passably entertaining horror story in Naomi. The titular character has either killed herself (or perhaps been killed) in a New York subway station, after which her former boyfriend is haunted by her memory. Additionally, the uncovering of the burial ground of a "witch holocaust" in Greenwich Village sets forces loose beneath Manhattan which will draw all of the characters together in a final confrontation. Clegg presents a mythic underground culture that has echoes of Gaiman's Neverwhere. When he isn't distracted by setting mood by employing a rambling literary style, Clegg tells a competent story with reasonably good characterization that makes me inclined to try another of his books. ( )