I love the happy accident that was Strange Magic: An Essex Witch Museum Mystery by Syd Moore. A patron dropped this book (and the next one I'm reviewing) at the circulation desk and the covers (and her effusions of pleasure) led me to checking them out for myself. This is the first in a series about (you guessed it) mysteries at the Essex Witch Museum. Our protagonist, Rosie Strange, has just inherited the museum from her deceased grandfather and she has plans for its renovation and immediate selling. (Rosie is immediately characterized as a no nonsense take charge lady.) However, soon after meeting the somewhat pompous curator, Sam Stone, she finds herself embarking on a search for the lost remains of an accused witch from the 16th century. [A/N: The accused witch they seek named Ursula Cadence is based off of an actual woman from this time period and location in Essex named Ursula Kemp who was accused, tried, confessed, and hanged for the crime of witchcraft.] Why the urgency to find these bones? Well, a little boy possessed by the son of the dead woman is losing the fight against the spirit within and the bones hold the key to his exorcism. No biggie. It's obvious that Moore has done her research on the history of witches and witchcraft in Essex because a ton of facts are thrown at the reader in this little volume (and I'm sure that's why it's spawned a series). But this isn't high brow literature by any means so please don't be deterred from giving this a shot. If you liked the nonfiction book Witches then you'll probably dig this historical fiction/mystery as it's based on true events and discusses how occult practices still occur today. It had been a while since I delved into the supernatural and I enjoyed my time with these characters so I'm sure there'll be a future review of the sequel Strange Sight. 7/10 for Strange Magic.

What I'm Currently Reading: I'll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman's Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer by Michelle McNamara

Both the titles and the covers of these books grabbed me, and as they were part of a 40% off sale, and I've been looking for new mystery series, I couldn't resist grabbing #'s 1 and 2.

I'm glad I did, although book 1 and I got off to a rocky start, when cracking it open the other night in bed, I read the prologue, featuring a comatose little boy suddenly 'waking up' speaking in Early English and rising up out of bed, floating in the crucifix position.  NOT what I want to read about right before turning out the lights and going to bed, thanks.

Fortunately, none of the rest of the book is nearly as scary as the prologue.  Spooky fun, yes, a tad creepy at times, but mostly fun.  Rosie has inherited her estranged grandfather's Essex Witch Museum, which she plans on selling as soon as possible.  Except while she's there a plea for help comes along that she can't refuse, and she and the curator, Sam (cue romantic tension) find themselves on a race to locate the remains of the original Essex Witch.

It's a good story - an excellent story.  My only beefs with it were the slightly forced tone of the will-they-won't-they romantic tension, and Rosie's character, to a certain degree.  The former is just personal taste, but the latter is, I think, a lack of micro-cultural understanding. Rosie is a strong, very intelligent and independent woman, but has a chip on her shoulder about being an Essex girl - and I don't know what that means.  As the book progressed I got the feeling it's sort of like an American redneck, but my lack of confidence meant Rosie came across paranoid, or at least carrying an aggressive inferiority complex.  

Possibly related, her internal dialogue's habit of noting every time a man looked at her breasts/body got super tedious, super fast.  Yes, men look at women's bits; sometimes they are so distracted by them they lose sight of the fact women have faces.  Yes, it's tiresome, Yes, it's deplorable. Don't care. Don't want to hear about it in my murder mystery, it's beyond irrelevant and lent a rather shallow tone to an MC that wasn't.

Note though that these were minor annoyances; if I understood the Essex thing better, I'm guessing they would have lent authenticity to her character, and her accounting of leers received didn't happen more than 2 or 3 times, and it's a personal tic.  The majority of the story was, as I said, excellent: fast-paced, well plotted, and my favorite literary device: based on the history of a real woman tried and hung for witchcraft, Ursula Kemp.  In the acknowledgements, the author outlines at what point the fiction diverges from the reality, and both make for compelling storytelling. Also, people throughout history have been appalling.  Truly appalling. 

I'm so glad I already have book 2 in hand, and I believe book 3 is scheduled for publication any day now, which means if I like Strange Sight as much as I enjoyed Strange Magic, I'll only have to wait as long as the postal service to find out what happens next.

I had a lot of fun with this story despite its few faults. Yancy is a rough and tumble character with a good heart. He’s somewhere in his 70s but because of his magic he looks like he’s in his 40s. His lingo made me think of biker movies and James Dean and gritty stories of Vietnam. Also, Yancy is a smoker which I like in characters even though I don’t care for it in real life.

Hunter gives us small glimpses into Yancy’s past which includes his family that he left behind and his time spent working closely with other magic users. It hooked me. I wanted to know more even as I wanted Yancy to get to the bottom of these demonic murders. Yancy has depth and while I wanted some of the side characters to be a bit deeper, Yancy was enough to keep me entertained.

The pacing was good with plenty of action and small moments of reflection tossed in. This story made a good companion was I played Titan Quest. While Yancy was the star, I enjoyed Greg as well. He’s got some snark and he’s tough on Yancy but he’s also intriguing. The building of the magic-side of the world is also well done. There were clear rules for the bits of magic presented and those stayed consistent throughout the story. All together, 4/5 stars.

I received a free copy of this book.

The Narration: Charlie Kevin was a lot of fun to listen to. He is the perfect match for Yancy Lazarus. He’s got a little gravel to his voice, always seems on the cusp of being a smart ass (just like Yancy), and also handles Yancy’s emotions well. All his character voices were distinct and his female characters sounded feminine. There were no technical issues with this recording. 5/5 stars.

I'm not sure where the author was going with the story, I found the humour a bit laboured and it felt a bit forced to me but there were moments that kept me reading.

Rosie Strange has inherited the Essex Witch Museum and her family assume she's going to sell it. She decides to go there and get it ready for sale and then gets caught up with a child possessed by a ghost who is slowly killing him. To save the child she has to work with the handsome Sam Stone, the curator of the museum to find the bones of a witch.

Rosie is a burnt out cynical Benefit Fraud investigator who has met all the bad in society and has all the attitude of someone who has to do this too much. There are several infodumps and "as-you-know Bob" moments, which seem to be mostly there to educate the main character and to show how much research the author has done. 

There is potential here and hopefully things will improve with more. There were times when I felt like things were moving quite slowly and then it felt like I had missed some moment. This is basically a road trip through the English Countryside but it also felt only like the author was forcing the characters to spend time together.

Falls into Urban fantasy, amateur sleuth, supernatural, ghost, witches, possibly chilling children, terror in a small town and terrifying women but I'm using it for plain horror, possession that could kill you is pretty horrific.

Minor quibble, it's "shot across the bow" rather than "shot across the bough"; Ship not Tree.