The lesson I learned from reading The Witches' Hammer is this: just because it says 'Hitchcock' on the cover, no matter how much I may want it to, this does not mean I'm about to read a deliciously complicated mystery worthy of old Alfred. And this is my own damn fault, because a big part of why I bought this book is because the name 'Hitchcock' grabbed me. Sure, not Alfred. But once the name got my attention, I read the blurb and saw a review snippet that called the thing 'elegant', so I thought, okay, I'll give this a shot.On the surface, the core of the plot is sound. We've got a youngish heroine whose book collector father is murdered when he acquires a notorious grimoire, and the blurb promises intrigue as she and her ex-husband and an occultist book collector track down what the deal is with this grimoire. We've got the obligatory Secret Society that's an offshoot of fundamentalist Catholicism. We've got the heroine wandering all over the world as she tries to put all the pieces together.But here's where the book falls down: the vast majority of it is just people talking to one another. There's hardly any interesting action, and most of this is at the end, far too late to keep me from wishing that the characters would stop yapping to one another and get into a good ol' fashioned shootout or car chase or brawl in a dark alley.Right in the wake of this is the other issue I have with this novel, which is to say, a lot of the aforementioned character dialogue is caught up with gender politics--as personified by the heroine and her ex-husband sniping at one another about how "you guys want this" and "you gals feel that". This got pretty tiresome to read after a while, and wasn't helped much by the description of how the grimoire equated women with evil, ravening succubi. Don't get me wrong, this is potentially powerful stuff to write about; for me as a reader, though, this particular story didn't handle it well. It came across more heavy-handed to me than anything else.Now, all this said, I should also give this book credit for doing a few unusual things. It is unabashed in giving us a heroine who plain flat out does not care for sex, and the experiences she has towards the beginning of the plot don't particularly resolve this question for her. Neither do either of the main male characters, which surprised me, and which I rather respect--"I don't know if I like sex, but I certainly didn't like it with you" is a refreshing attitude to see in a novel. I was also rather startled by the final fates of the main characters, on which I won't elaborate here, since that involves spoilers.All in all this was ultimately unsatisfying to me, though there's enough here that it could work for a different reader. For me, two and a half stars.
Was eine spannende Geschichte über Hexenverfolgung und ein kostbares altes Buch über schwarze Magie sein könnte, entwickelt sich von Seite zu Seite zu einem dümmlichen Plot. Um der Bibliophilen-Geschichte den nötigen Kick zu verleihen, lässt die Autorin ihre Heldin einen sexuellen Selbstfindungstrip durchleben, bei dem sie sie mit verschiedenen Männer ihre verschiedenen, unter anderen sadomasochistischen Bedürfnisse ausleben lässt (damit es am Ende ein Happy End geben kann, verlieren ihre Verehr
What do You think about The Witches' Hammer (1995)?
did you read her other novels? they are much better, not high literature, granted, but fun, and much better executed. i gave this one also one star - a disastrous book!
—Catherine
Periodically, I'll read books solely because the title grabs me. Case in point: "The Witches' Hammer". As it turns out, the book is a mystery in the Knights Templar/church mythology genre, which was a pleasant surprise. I wish I could say the same after having read the book. The premise of the book - 35 year old divorcee discovers her father's murder is tied to a grimoire that he recently acquired, and goes on a quest to avenge his death, discovering church intrigue and pagan knowledge along the
—Anna
