The Cunning Man (1) by D.J. Butler

The Cunning Man (1) Reviews

• 
  Andrew Hall

  I loved this fantasy mystery, it was right up my alley. Set in Utah in the 1930s, Hiram Wooley, a beet farmer, is cunning man, conversant with practical folk magic, which is becoming increasingly forgotten in the modernizing world. Hiram is a do-gooder, sent on missions of aid by the Presiding Bishopric, and going far beyond his calling in ministering to those he meets. I love how Butler creates a magic world out of odds and ends of Mormon beliefs (Hiram's positive magic is tied to his worthiness) and European folk magic traditions.
  Hiram and his son Michael are fantastic characters. My only complaint is that the other characters are drawn somewhat one-dimensionally.
• 
  Paul McNamee

  If you are a fan of occult detective dark fantasy folk magic stories along the lines of Manly Wade Wellman’s John the Balladeer, David Drake’s Old Nathan, and Brian Keene’s Levi Stoltzfus, Dave Butler & Aaron Michael Ritchey’s THE CUNNING MAN should be on your reading list—near the top. Hiram Woolley easily joins the ranks of such heroes.
• 
  Peter Bradley

  The Cunning Man by D.J. Butler and Aaron Ritchy
  
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  I picked this up thinking it might be along the lines Manley Wade Wellman's "Silver John" series, which I think was initially set during the same post-World War I time frame. Like the Wellman, this story involves a staunch, sober and decent man who knows the magical lore of the backcountry. However, where Wellman's hero roamed around the Appalachians with a silver stringed guitar, the hero of the Cunning Man is a Mormon beet farmer.
  
  In this time when diversity is used to justify giving awards to mediocre books, this book really shows diversity. Outside of Orson Scott Card, I don't think I know of another book that mines Mormon culture for its story resources, but this book shows that there is an exotic and deep source of material there.
  
  The "cunning man" of the story is Hiram Woolley, a Mormon beet farmer who helps out his neighbors during the Great Depression. Hiram learned his cunning from his grandmother. Mormon hedge magic involves cantrips, lamens, symbols, and rocks. Hiram has rocks that stop poisoning and also tell him whether someone is lying to him. Since this is Mormon mythos, there is also a "seer stone" that puts the user into contact with angels or demons after one places it in a hat.
  
  Hiram is dispatched to a Utah mining town where the inhabitants are on the verge of starvation because the owners are divided on where the mine should be operated. There are rumors of ghosts in the mine. The railroad wants to use the family division to force a sale of the mine. And, finally, there is another cunning man whose knowledge of lor may exceed Hiram's.
  
  The authors D.J. Butler and Aaron Michael Ritchey set up the pieces and do a good job of moving them around to keep the readers interest. This is a fun book, particularly in light of its setting, but not entirely perfect. Hiram's adopted son, Michael, is just a little to sarcastic for my tastes, but I enjoyed the characters and the working out of the plot.
• 
  Rachel

  Hiram, a practicing Mormon in the 1930s also practices folk magic on the side, but strives to hide it from his adopted Indian/indigenous son. On a trip to give food to miners working in a closed mine, Hiram investigates the reason for the mine's closure and yes, of course there are other people using folk magic and demons. I haven't read many books set in the 1930s and I enjoyed that. I also enjoyed learning about how Mormon folk magic could have ended up if people still practiced it. Hiram uses a dowsing rod, a peep stone, lamens, and other magical artifacts. He also uses scripture verses as charms, and his "personal worthiness" affects the efficacy of his magic. Except he doesn't like calling it magic and prefers to be called a "cunning man."
  
  There were a lot of things going on--different factions with their own motivations and reasons for their involvement with the dark power in the mine (come on, you know if it's a book about folk magic there's going to be a ghost or zombie or something in the mine). I think my main complaint is that there were a few times where I understood that a character was doing something for plot reasons, but I didn't understand their narrative reasons for doing so. For instance, at one point Hiram takes a break outside and happens to meet someone who was lost. It feels like the only reason he took a break was to meet this person by happenstance. I guess you could argue that the charms he used made it so he was in the right place at the right time for certain things... but I would have liked that to be clearer if that was the case. There were also a few times when I guessed what was happening before the protagonist, which made me think the protagonist was stupid, when it was more of an issue of too strong of foreshadowing. I was also surprised when people started dying, because for some reason I thought the book would be more of a "weird mystery" than a horror-type book.
  
  That said, I enjoyed the characterization and the conversations. Michael, Hiram's adopted teenage son, seemed to serve as an anti-trope to common Native American tropes. Instead of being a strong, silent man of the woods, Michael is a mouthy, sarcastic teenager with aspirations to be a scientist. Sometimes he seemed a little extreme (not even my biology-enthusiast brother calls houseflies by their scientific names), but most of the time he provided necessary comic relief. Other characters were not as well-developed and the depth of their involvement was on a higher level. I was surprised at the end to find out the motivation for one of the characters... and that I won't spoil. Recommended if you enjoy urban fantasy and/or horror.
• 
  Laura

  This book was so cool and obviously well researched. I haven't felt so inspired to write in so long, but the whole time I kept thinking "this is the kind of book I want to write."
  Hiram is such a complex and relatable character, despite his motivations being almost solely that he wants to do the right thing for the sake of helping people.
  And the mystery and puzzle of it all was really compelling. I felt like I was playing Hiram in a video game and going around to do lots of engaging side quests. Very cool
• 
  Graham Bradley

  Great use of lore and history, this one was a lot of fun. Especially for me because I spent a good chunk of the summer working down in Price and Helper, it was easy to imagine the setting and the people.
  
  And that there were demons living under the mines, haha.
• 
  Brian Driver

  I really enjoyed THE CUNNING MAN; it was a story unlike any that I had read for quite a while and I was pleased to see it retained that unique quality throughout the novel. The protagonist, Hiram Wooley, was a man especially well versed in biblical lore and that knowledge was his “weapon” against his enemies, yet he feels he must do so without letting anyone know what he is doing.
  
  Think of this as a kind of STORM FRONT; by Jim Butcher, wherein investigator Harry Dresden also takes on cases that have to do with the supernatural. There is a difference that I will try to articulate: THE CUNNING MAN tackles social issues that turn out to have an unusual religious origin; STORM FRONT, is a bit “campy” as it takes on such a well-known tropes, like vampires.
  
  Here, Hiram Wooley is tasked with bringing food to a community of mine workers whose mine has shut down, and he realizes while his contribution of food will only help them for a day or so, the more meaningful assistance must search out the deeper issues at hand, and this will not be easy. Hiram has brought along his adopted son, Michael, who knows little about Hiram’s “secret power,” and Hiram wants to keep it this way. Trying to take on the evil enemy through his special biblical folklore without letting Michael (or others) know what he is doing makes for a different kind of supernatural thriller, and I quite liked it.
  
  The book gets a bit complex when it comes to the folklore, especially when he attempts to determine what kind of spells he is facing. But, say, like the science in Alan Weir’s THE MARTIAN, you find you can skim these specifics without hurting the overall effect of the plot. What’s important is the process, and the verisimilitude that displays how Hiram has schooled himself in the bible and quite adequately applies his knowledge through spoken words, symbolic talismans, protective wards and other actions that seem magical to the unschooled but are really applications of biblical wisdom.
  
  You want to keep a dog quiet? Put a severed tongue in your shoe. You want to get better quickly? Place a particular talisman in your pocket. You want to know if someone’s lying to you? Place a rock called a bloodstone in your pocket and feel if it “buzzes.”
  
  These are the skills of a “cunning man,” like Hiram.
  
  This is a book, incidentally, that could be read by Young Adults, in my estimation. There is a good deal of gore in it toward the end, but I don’t think that’s so rare anymore. The same goes for swearing: some obscenities find their way into the pages, but often their use is scolded, as Hiram is a God-fearing man.
• 
  David Harris

  I'm not a big fan of fantasy fiction, but I wanted to read this book because it is set in an interesting corner of my home state of Utah, namely the environs of Helper, Utah, a historic railroad town near Price about a two-hour journey from Salt Lake City through scenic Spanish Fork Canyon.
  
  Some of my favorite reading experiences involve long-distance car travel in the United States. Steinbeck's Travels With Charley was fun, and I enjoyed On The Road to the extent that I could get past Jack Kerouac’s crazy ramblings and acrobatic sentence structures. William Least Heat-Moon’s Blue Highways was another memorable read, and Eddie Harris’s Mississippi Solo: A River Quest was a fascinating tale about traveling down the big river from its headwaters in Minnesota all the way to the Gulf of Mexico via canoe.
  
  The Cunning Man starts off great with a journey from Lehi, Utah down to Helper. Hiram, the protagonist of our story, has enlisted the aid of his 17-year-old adopted son, Michael, to drive him to Helper to deliver aid from the Bishop’s Storehouse in Salt Lake City to miners suffering from an extended shutdown of a local coal mine. Michael is an agnostic with ambitions in the sciences, and he has a fun relationship with his father where they banter back and forth easily about both the merits and the follies of religious belief. But Michael has no idea that his father is a practitioner of supernatural arts who utilizes hexes and peep stones and other instruments of the occult to protect himself from witches and anyone else practicing bad magic.
  
  The book contains fascinating descriptions of the town of Helper and its surrounding topography along with a healthy assortment of colorful 19th-century characters such as a general store owner with a strong German accent named Gus Dollar and a lawyer from Denver who goes by the name of Five-Cent Jimmy.
  
  When it comes to story, though, I felt the book was lacking somewhat. A beast with three mouths living in a deep cavern under the mine which can materialize at will out of swarms of large flies, a pair of young twins who speak in perfectly synchronized chorus and a Cumorah-like stone box hidden up in the earth where only farmer-conjurer Hiram can find it are interesting features which add color to an otherwise formulaic and predictable tale. The historic props help, as well. But, in the end, I was left feeling like the opportunity was missed for creating a much more inventive tale.
  
  Nevertheless, much credit goes to the authors for creating an entertaining story surrounding magic in Mormonism, a topic around which much speculation has swirled due to stories about the Prophet Joseph Smith’s activities involving digging for treasure and using a peepstone early in his career.
  
• 
  Jane Bigelow

  Full disclosure: No, I did not read this book in one day. Far from it; there's too much going on here to rip through it. I know one of the authors, and when that's the case I don't flag it as "Currently Reading" in case I wish to preserve a tactful silence when I'm done. There's no need for that in this book.
  
  The Cunning Man is a fascinating take on magic and religion, ethics and loyalty. It also has some of the most thoroughly creepy passages I've encountered in many years of reading novels of the paranormal. I would have finished this book faster if I hadn't had to stop reading it before going to sleep.
  
  For some reason, if there's organized religion in a novel that involves magic, that religion is most often Roman Catholicism. In this book, set in Utah during the Great Depression, it's the Church of Latter-Day Saints--or, as commonly known, the Mormon church. Hiram Woolley is both a "cunning man", expert in charms and magic, and a sincere Mormon. Combining the two is not always easy. The novel opens with him attempting to explain to his bishop and counselors that he is not, in fact, a witch. He's learned from his grandmother the arts of being a cunning man, and describes himself as "A man who knows how things work".
  
  He needs that knowledge. The Kimball Mine, owned by a Mormon family, is closed. Someone must take food to the miners; Hiram is chosen. He hasn't been there long before it's clear that there's more of a problem than just a closed mine and some family quarrels.
  
  I'm not an expert on Depression history, but I know a little of it and of the railroads. Butler and Ritchie have the details right so far as I can tell. This world feels very real. That makes the manifestations of evil truly scary.
  
  The grocery store is full of arcane symbols and protective charms. If the grocer simply another cunning man, or a sorcerer? There are monsters in the tunnels, and evil spells in use. Why did so many of Teancum Kimball's children die in infancy? Why are the surviving children on such poor terms with each other? It's a very tangled web of deception.
  
  The personal relationships are intriguing. Hiram's adopted son is Navajo, a man of science and skepticism. He loves jazz, and plays guitar. He and Hiram treat each other with respect and affection even as they argue. Mary McGill, labor organizer, keeps her emotional distance as much as she's able. Even the minor characters like the Markopoulos family, are clearly-drawn individuals.
  
  I hope there's going to be another book.
  
  
• 
  Adrian Montanez

  Are you an exorcist? No, I'm just a cunning man.
  
  Now, this was a long read for me. This story is set in Utah in the 1930s during the Great Depression. Our main character Hiram Wooley, a beet farmer, is a cunning man, someone who's able to use practical folk magic, which in the modernizing world is extremely rare. Hiram is a do-gooder, sent on missions of aid by the Presiding Bishopric, and going far beyond his calling in ministering to those he meets.
  
  Now I tried to read this with the audiobook playing while I was at work, but the narration was just a bad interpretation of a very interesting book. I read about this WWI veteran that's trying to do right by his beliefs and set a good example for his son. Instead, the narrator portrayed Hiram with a voice that I think belongs more in a YA novel than in a rich and insightful piece of Mormon and Western literature. I got to a point where I just dropped it for a bit and read 2 novellas to see if a pallet cleanser would help. It did, and as soon as I got back to reading it instead of listening to it, I breezed through it.
  
  Those last pages before the epilogue were shocking and entertaining. Other than that D.J. Butler and Aaron Michael Ritchey did an amazing job in shedding vital light on the transition from a 19th-century frontier culture to a 20th-century economy and culture. I really felt like this was the end of an era and the beginning of a new one. Even with all the setbacks caused by that audiobook, this book pulled through and I wouldn't mind reading the next installment in the series.
  
  4 stars out of 5. I won't condemn this book for having a bad audiobook.
• 
  Levi Graham

  This book took a while to get into, but once it did, it was hard to put down. The story was great and the mystery was a fun adventure up until the very end.
  
  If I had to pick something out that was annoying was that it relied heavily on the Church in Utah in the early days. If you are not familiar with the LDS church, it may outcast readers, but if you are LDS, it may outcast you. There's combinations of different churches, but this addresses seer stones, and uses "magic" to justify old beliefs in the church trying to make them real. Its a strong advocate for the church, but also introduces strange witchcraft as other solutions to evil. Its a mixed bag, but an open mind makes this a great read.
  
  The great was that I enjoyed the main character, and his motives were never in question once the book started getting good. His son was a good Watson-esque partner, but the female protagonist wasn't much. Her purpose in the book seemed pointless, but i still liked her character.
  
  And, for a beat farmer, he never goes into long monologs or comparisons with his farming. His career is almost pointless to the plot other than to say he's kind of an indistinguishable guy. I mean it is Winter so he has to wait for thaw before plating, but it seems like he's the only capable guy of delivering food to starving miners. Was it only that he had a truck that sent him on a mission?
  
  Sorry Dwight Schrute fans, there were no bears, little beats, and zero Battlestar Galactica. But Supernatural fans might get a kick out of this book.
• 
  J.T. Evans

  An easy five stars.
  
  Each time I felt like "the pace is slowing" I turned a page and it amped right back up. This means (to me) that there might have been 3-4 paragraphs in the whole novel that could have been trimmed or tightened. That's pretty good!
  
  Through the whole thing, I /felt/ like I was there in Depression Era Utah at a coal mining town. My grandfather was born in 1923 and by 1935 was the head of the household on a ranch in the midst of The Great Depression. I was largely raised by my grandparents, so I learned from his stories about what it was like. The Cunning Man captures this through and through.
  
  Color me impressed on the depth of research necessary to tell this story in the setting it's in.
  
  Oh. Right. There are characters as well. From Hiram to Michael to Mary to Bill to Gus to the whole cast... They are who they are, and they are true to themselves throughout. I loved them all (or loved to hate them if it came to that), and I can't wait to see more from Hiram and Michael and (hopefully) Mary down the road.
  
  Excellent work, fellows.
• 
  astaliegurec

  I don't know why, but I'm way out of the mainstream with my review of D.J. Butler's 2019 novel "The Cunning Man." I got to the 13% point (all of the first five chapters) and threw in the towel. I suppose the writing's fine. But, if I get that far into a book without finding any indication of where the book's going, there's something wrong. Basically, I found a horrifying description of poverty, ruin, and labor dispute during the Great Depression and a few sentences saying the protagonist has mystical abilities. And that's it. I'm assuming the story actually shows up someplace. But, where that is, I don't know. I'm rating it at a Bad 1 star out of 5.
• 
  David

  Suitable for All People
  
  The combination of Mr Butler and Ritchey is really good! I looked for differences in writing styles to see if I could tell who wrote what, but the story was seamless and fluid. I'd call this a slow burn; the build up was masterfully done and the final confrontation was exciting and dramatic!
  I really enjoyed getting to know the main character, Hiram Wooley. Turns out he is a reluctant Constantine, just trying to do the right thing with the tools and knowledge he has. I enjoyed Hiram's attempts of discreet use of his talents to correct the wrongs of the Kimball family, while not being very discreet at all. It was a fun read and left me wanting more!
• 
  Joy

  Interesting mix of history and fantasy, highly enjoyable.
  
  I thoroughly enjoyed this unusual story, which follows a man held between old traditions and religious requirements. He does his best to help those he can, while fighting an evil spirit along the way. Mr. Butler does an excellent job of evoking depression-era utah mining country and the people who live there, all while telling a supernatural story tempered by the doubts and struggles of the main character, Hiram Wooley, and 3 fractious siblings who have recently acquired their fathers mine and all the troubles that brings. Well-drawn characters and a strong story keep you interested till the very end. Well done!
• 
  Niels

  This is a great mix of mystery and magic set in against the backdrop of the real history of the mining towns of Central Utah during the great depression. Something dark and evil is lurking in the hills outside of Helper Utah and Hiram Woolley, beet farmer and "cunning man" searches for answers in his effort to aid the struggling families of the coal miners that have been driven to desperation by the closing of the Kimbell mine. I found this to be a real page turner. I couldn't wait to see the mystery solved and secrets relieved.
• 
  David Madara

  Hiram Woolley is a beet farmer in Lehi, Utah. He also has knowledge to be a cunning man (takes away the hexes of witches). He has a job to deliver food to the people of a mining town, whose mine is shut down. In the midst of his labors he finds a witch is causing trouble. Can he find the solution for the town?
  
  A great western, similar to the Silver John tales of Manly Wade Wellman. I am glad there is a
  sequel, because I sure want to read more! I would recommend this to anyone who loves Wellman
  as much as I do.
• 
  Ann Woodbury Moore

  This is not the type of book I would normally pick up, so sometimes reading lists and suggestions are helpful! Fantasy and horror combine in a novel set in a poor Utah mining town in the 1930s. Hiram is a "cunning man," with mystical and magical abilities that he uses with care and humility. He and his adopted Navajo son, Michael, face formidable enemies as they try to end a curse and restore peace and prosperity to the community. Besides those two characters, I particularly liked the Catholic mine organizer, Mary McGill.
• 
  Tiffany

  Hiram and his adopted son are charged with bringing food to starving immigrant miners at an Utah mine in the early 1930s. They inadvertently stumble upon violence, murder, and a family feud. Hiram uses the folklore magic of his German grandmother coupled with his Mormon faith to find the source of mine’s chaos.
  
  I love how the authors weave in the Utah Mormon culture with the Depression era. I loved the addition of the folklore magic. Hiram is a wonderful character. Looking forward to the sequel.
• 
  Fraser Sherman

  It's 1930s in Mormon Utah. Hiram Woolley is a Mormon, but he's also a "cunning man," the old folk term for a magician. While delivering food for the church to a starving mining community he discovers there's something supernatural going on and can't resist doing something about it.
  This is the kind of recent-historical fantasy I usually love. Annoyingly I cannot pin down why I couldn't get into it, but after 150 pages I realized I didn't care how it ended.
• 
  Kyle

  Set in depression-era Utah, Hiram Wooley follows the old ways of folk magic. He knows that times are changing and old superstitions are dying out as the world marches past the Great War. But modern science still can't explain the supernatural, mythical, and mysterious things still happening in the world. Sorcerers, demons, and witches must be defeated by a cunning man.
  
  Hiram is an honest, earnest, and god-fearing man. He is accompanied on his adventures by his adopted son Michael--a witty, sarcastic, and non-believing teenager. Together they seek to magnify their callings in helping the people they've been assigned to assist. I really enjoyed Hiram and Michael's relationship and character arcs. That said, some other characters felt a bit one-dimensional. In a somewhat noir or video game-esque manner, Hiram would jump from NPC to NPC with the side characters doing little to solve the problems beset before them. But overall, this style helped the plot move coherently.
  
  Butler and Ritchey wrote an absolute page-turner. The plotting and pacing of this book are phenomenal. Exciting things happen in each chapter; the magic is strange and wonderful; the monsters are mysterious and frightening. I "accidentally" read the whole thing in two days, staying up late to read "just one more chapter" which generally extended into 4 or 5 more beyond my initial stopping point.
• 
  Aaron Culley

  Interesting concept, and I was curious to read a novel about a "Cunning Man" after having read some graphic novels by Warren Ellis with a fascinating character who uses that title. But this didn't do it for me. The worldbuilding didn't work for me, and the setting and characters just didn't pull me into the story.
• 
  Daniel

  I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Takes place in and around the area centered in Helper, Utah and the various mining communities. It was great being able to have previously been in the various locations described. Reminds me of Orson Scott Card's Hatrack universe and early American kenning and talented people 's knacks.
• 
  Budd Trippet

  fine yarn from Butler and Ritchey
  
  Set in the depression of the 30s, Hiram Woolley battles the forces of darkness with Christian magic. A compassionate man faced with terrifying evil. The book is full of action humor and filled with compelling characters. I loved the historical setting.
• 
  Keith

  Pretty good tale of a good Utah man during the Depression time who gets involved with some miners near Helper Utah who are dealing with occult forces. Hiram though happens to know a few things that help because he is a cunning man.
• 
  Jeff

  Excellently written! I really enjoyed the development and pacing of the story. I was quickly drawn in by the characters and the mystery of this alternate history. It became quite believable to me as it carried me along. I am ready for the next one.