Catastrophe's Spell — Mayer Alan Brenner

SOMEONE WAS ON A POWER TRIP... .

And far too many acquaintances of Maximillian the Vaguely Disreputable--Max, to his friends--were being unwittingly caught up in the sorcerous struggle. Now, the Great Karlini and his lovely wife had become stuck in a bespelled castle with a tendency to take off at the most inconvenient moments and only Max stood any chance of tracking down the being who'd trapped them there. But what Max couldn't anticipate was that the hunt would lead him to the ramshackle town of Roosing 0olvaya and straight into a power war between Death gods, necromancers, and a sorcerer/detective who would have been able to outmagic the best of them except for the curse that made him mortally ill whenever he cast even the most minor of spells. With wizardry running wild, could Max avert the catastrophic doom that was swiftly overtaking himself, the Great Karlini, and all of Roosing 0olvaya?