Where do demons come from – review of the book “Exorcism by Dory Wilk”

Witch-policewoman

Someone murders young women, subjecting them to torture and some ritual – there are wounds in the shape of old runes and glowing signs on the corpse. Only Witkacy and a certain pathologist remained in the Toruń police, but only the former admitted to his heritage. They both know from the first glance at the victims that they will not do without Dora this time.

The penultimate volume of Jadowska’s hexalogue is, in a sense, a return to what was at the beginning – a large part of the action takes place in Toruń, not Thornie, Dora again takes part in the investigation, meets her colleagues from the headquarters, interrogates and tracks. She even ends up in the basement again, which she herself comments ironically several times. If you know the Wild Child of Love , expect a similar atmosphere. It is true that the romantic theme is still important, but it is no longer based on the figure of a triangle or (at this stage of the acquaintance) of the Triumvirate of the witch, the devil and the angel. As always, the author will devote a lot of space to interpersonal relations, if you’ve seen the illustrations, you know – in this episode, however, Baal will be the most important.

Old gods

This name was given – the Crimson Prince, the king of demons and the fertility deity, will appear frequently and will significantly contribute to solving the mystery of the ritual murderer and keeping the main character alive. We will see how he lives and deals with his very rebellious subjects, we will hear myths, called here memories. In this volume, Dora’s relationship with Baal will be really efficiently described, thanks to which their relationship is not based in the reader’s mind only on the statement “because she is such a special girl.”

If it has already been said about the uniqueness of a certain angelic witch – a brief description of this volume may give some people the impression that we really have a heroine who is greatly exaggerated. As you know, Dora’s legacy is remarkable, which gives her a wide spectrum of powers and ties her fate to many magical races – wolves, vampires, fertility magic. As if that were not enough, he constantly runs into extraordinary problems and emerges victorious from them (so far). Even now, the demon she is going to fight is a truly amazing creature. Are you thinking: exaggeration? Anyone here is treating complexes? Restrain your criticism, Dora’s troubles will turn out to be well justified, but we only learn this during the investigation. Difficult and ungrateful as any, because even close friends are reluctant to share secrets with investigators.

Second edition

The new edition of the hexalogy from Sine Qua Non, with a beautiful rainbow on the spines, is, as you know, the second edition of this series. It has been slightly improved, but from the first volumes, the publisher and the author decided that there would be as few changes as possible. It seems to me that this time they could improve a bit more, or give themselves time to release more volumes. There are some annoying repetitions in the text that could be easily removed. It is possible that people who do not write them do not notice them, and I have a reflex to catch and correct such things, and only he is responsible for my unpleasant sensations. The fact is that a few more amendments would not hurt Dora Wilk ‘s exorcisms .

On the occasion of this edition of Hexalogy about the Witch, a lot of emphasis was placed on the visual layer – we have the rainbow mentioned by me, which AD 2020 really needs to be appreciated, but also great illustrations by Magdalena Babińska. Their charm lies in the fact that for those who know the book, they seem like absolute spoilers, but for the reader before reading, they are a kind of trailer. You can review them before reading the first sentence, recognize the characters, figure out what’s going on – and then let yourself be surprised. This is what a good teaser is all about – it turns on the imagination without revealing the twists.

We have five volumes of Dora’s adventures behind us, and we’re approaching the grand finale. The end of the Exorcisms this time marks the starting point (I think). There are no innocent people in war . I’ll see in a moment how much this cliffhanger reveals the intrigue of the next book; maybe it will be just a breakout point for something of apocalyptic proportions? After all, the witch, who is friends with everything, has already sucked so much blood on the gray eminences who believe in the good old “divide and rule” that another conflict cannot remain a local turmoil.