Guest Post: Jeanne and Treadmill Books: Witch City Mysteries by Carol J. Perry

Please welcome back Jeanne of the Bookblog of the Bristol Library as she is here with her latest review….

Treadmill Books:  Witch City Mysteries by Carol J. Perry

In Caught Dead Handed, Lee Barrett returns to Salem, the town where she grew up.  Now she’s a young widow in town for a job interview at the local TV station, much to the delight of her Aunt Ibby, a long time Salem resident who raised Lee after the deaths of her parents.  Lee realizes very quickly that she’s not going to be hired for the reporter’s job—that position is going to go to the shiny young man—but another job opportunity soon appears.  Ariel Constellation, a self-proclaimed psychic who hosts the weekly horror movie, is found dead (by Lee, of course) and the station manager takes Lee on a trial basis to fill in. 

It isn’t long before Lee has some unnerving encounters of her own, leading her to believe that Ariel’s killer might strike again.  Aided by reference librarian Aunt Ibby and O’Ryan, Ariel’s cat who seems to be more than an ordinary tabby, she sets out to unveil a murderer.

So goes the plot of Caught Dead Handed, the first in the Witch City Mystery series.  I was drawn in easily because of the likeable characters, especially Lee and Aunt Ibby.  Lee is an independent woman, capable of making her own decisions, which I like. While she inherited money from her parents and from her late husband, but doesn’t flaunt her wealth other than the odd extravagance; and she has a strong work ethic, which means that even though she doesn’t have to have a job, she wants to be employed.  She’s attracted to Pete, the local police detective but isn’t rushing into anything, nor does she pester him to reveal information he shouldn’t.  Pete, for his part, doesn’t continually admonish Lee to be careful or not to meddle.  Same for Aunt Ibby.  There’s just a lot of mutual respect between the characters, trusting each other to behave like adults. 

I also like the way the supernatural elements are handled.  Lee has experienced some things in the past that are inexplicable by rational standards, but she doesn’t immediately buy into the idea that, say, Ariel Constellation was anything but clever at reading people and giving plausible answers.  I like the balance between skeptic and believer, and feel that the author manages it well.  I confess I get tired of the lady protesting too much in some books; if it’s a supernatural mystery, then at some point, a character needs to buy into the idea and stop whining that it’s impossible.  I don’t mind a little resistance to the idea, but to have it go on book after book gets tiresome.  The supernatural clues that Lee gets are appropriately vague, giving Lee and the reader hints rather than solutions.  I expect that the supernatural elements will strength as the series continues.

Of course, one of my favorite parts is O’Ryan, Ariel’s cat who sometimes seems to point out clues.  He’s adorable and very cat-like (not all cozy mystery cats are).  He has a habit of sitting in front of the door just before someone comes, knowing either from supernatural means or very good hearing.  Some of my cats do the same thing. There are occasions when he goes beyond the expected, usually when Lee is in extreme danger but for the most part he seems like my orange cat—well, maybe not as Tommy isn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer.  More like Flora whom I suspect of masterminding a good bit of the mischief around the house.

I also enjoy some of the behind the scenes sorts of things, such as how a TV station works or how to prepare for a job on camera.  Lee has an eye for vintage furniture and fast cars, and tidbits of information about both are dropped during various books.

Besides interesting, well developed characters, Perry gives us a good sense of place.  Some scenes in the series take place in an old fashioned department store which is being repurposed for a school.  The store layout is described in lovely detail, bringing back memories of one I remember—not the modern versions, but ones with their own lunch counters and styling salons, where large signs or cut outs proclaimed that the store was a purveyor of Buster Brown shoes or Evening in Paris perfume. The rest of the town also has a presence, depending on the book; I like when authors use unique settings to good advantage rather than the generic Everytown, U.S.A.

Finally, Aunt Ibby and Lee love old movies, so there’s always a sprinkling of nostalgic titles or quotations to make me smile. 

I’m in the middle of Look Both Ways, the third book in the series, and enjoying it as much as I did the first two.  If there’s a weakness in the books, it’s that Lee doesn’t always make connections that I think are fairly obvious or follow up on certain clues.  I give her a bit of a pass because most of this arises from the supernatural visions which she doesn’t trust. Failure to follow up on clues can be a pet peeve, but in this case Lee is otherwise so likeable and sensible that I find it doesn’t annoy me too much.

This series is a definite treadmill win! I’ve already bought copies of the rest of the series including the just-released Grave Errors. The sixth in the series is scheduled to be out in 2018.

In order:

1.      Caught Dead Handed

2.      Tails, You Lose

3.      Look Both Ways

4.      Murder Go Round

5.      Grave Errors