Here’s the set-up for Chico Kidd’s The Printer’s Devil, just $2.99 on Kindle:

Sometimes the evil that magicians do lives after them, lying in wait for the unwary.

Sometimes curiosity does something far more perilous than simply put your life in danger.

And sometimes more than just lessons can be gained from history.

Alan Bellman, an unassuming writer, falls into an elaborate trap laid in the 17th century by wizard Roger Southwell.  But Southwell’s malevolence meets its match in Alan’s wife Kim, who also finds some quite unexpected allies in her quest to rescue her husband.

Intertwined with Kim and Alan’s story is another tale of Southwell’s machinations, that of the wizard’s unwilling ally and later enemy Fabian Stedman. Through the battle with evil Kim gains the knowledge and strength to fight back, against not only the sorcerer but ultimately the power of Hell itself.

The Printer’s Devil is a mix of magic, bell ringing, music and the great tradition of the master of ghost stories, M.R. James.  The book and placed 12th in Locus magazine’s Best First Novel poll.

From the reviewer:

Dorothy Sayers meets Peter Beagle in this exquisite fantasy .  This is a masterful tale which combines the third-person viewpoints of two modern people with the journal entries of Francis Stedman, a real person from 17th century England.– by a reviewer with the “pen” name of “A Customer”