Simon Westow is a thief-taker by trade, but when a close friend is wrongfully arrested for sedition, Simon is determined to clear his friend's name. Thankfully, he has the mysterious Jane to help him keep track of his other business, including tracking down the titular hocus girl who has bewitched and then stolen from a wealthy businessman. But when Jane finds the hocus girl, she discovers that someone else is out for Jane herself, and must do some sleuthing to track down the person who hired the hocus girl in the first place.
While the historical setting in early industrial Leeds, as well as the juxtaposition between Simon's risky job and his home life with a wife and two kids, is all intriguing, I honestly don't feel like I got to know the characters well enough to care about what was going on with them. I found this book a bit of a slog, though part of that may be that this is the second in the series and I haven't read the first one. Either way, there are better historical mysteries out there.
