Vanishing Act

Vanishing Act is the third Widdershins book. It sees the return of Harry and Sid as leads and the beginning of their formal partnership as hunters. It also introduces Verity Cunningham and Lei Feng, initial antagonists who later become allies and the protagonists of Sea Change. The Deadly Sin of this book is Pride.

Blurb
When a gifted assistant to a mysterious magician goes missing, famed bounty hunter and chain smoker extraordinaire Harriet Barber is called in to perform her own brand of magic by finding the girl before the next matinee.

But now she finds herself sharing the stage with old rivals, an unknown masked man, and various mechanical meances, not to mention a young wizard hoping tomake her solo act a double.

This show may go on longer than she'd expected...

Characters

 * Harriet Barber (Main character)
 * Gren
 * Florence de Montfort
 * Sidney Malik (Main Character)
 * Tim Chiang
 * Verity Cunningham
 * Lei Feng (Antagonist)
 * Pride (Deadly Sin)

Cameos / Minor Characters

 * The Zookeeper
 * Frank (Hunter's society)
 * Benjamin Thackerey
 * Heinrich Wolfe
 * Princess Victoria

Locations

 * London Zoo
 * H. Barber Office
 * The Royal Theatre
 * Pontefract Castle
 * Widdershins Anchor

Website
After Vanishing Act finished, Kate ran an adaptation of Puss in Boots she did for the Cationary Fabes and Fairy Tales anthology. This was taken down afterwards so there is no website bonus content available anymore.

Book
The print and PDF books include 4 pages of development sketches and the historical basis for Tim's character, and 4 pages of extracts from Harry's journal about her first case with Sid.

Release
Vanishing Act was released mostly on a Monday-Wednesday-Friday schedule between October 22nd 2012 and May 24th 2013.

The Kickstarter campaign for Vanishing Act ran between August 5th 2013 - September 4th 2013 and £10,532 was pledged by 480 backers. The unique rewards for this campaign were a Royal Society of Bounty Hunters lapel pin and an original Widdershins page (since pencils and inks were still done physically at this point).

Easter Eggs / Trivia

 * The Royal Theatre advertises 'Zathras: The one man show!' which is a reference to Darken, Kate's previous webcomic.
 * A couple resembling the 10th Doctor and Rose from Doctor Who can be seen leaving the theatre after Tim's show.
 * Wolfe and Ben can be seen heading to the parade together. We don't often see them together without Mal so I think it's extra cute to see them hanging out.
 * An advert for Hotel Gula from Piece of Cake is on the wall in the Anchor.
 * A woman resembling Nora Fenton is visible in the crowd at the parade. The man and child she's with look different to Geoff and Cassandra in Find the Lady but this could be an old design.
 * On the back of Tim's paper there's a partially cut off headline reading 'Local Hotel Set To Close' referencing the Hotel Gula and the events of Piece of Cake.
 * Tim's character and stage name are based off 'Chung Ling Soo' - the stage name of William Ellsworth Robinson, a white American who pretended to be Chinese for his bullet stopping trick. Tim's surname Chiang is taken from an old Doctor Who episode 'The Talons of Weng Chaing' which was likely inspired by Chung Ling Soo.