A Mind for Murder Mystery #2
Rochelle Staab
Berkley Prime Crime
August 7, 2012 / ISBN 978-0-425-25149-2
Mystery
Amazon
Reviewed
by Laura Hinds
Liz Cooper
and her boyfriend Nick Garfield attend a celebratory party at the
home of Paco and Lucia Rojas, to mark the Rojas' 60th wedding anniversary.
Dinner goes well, and Liz is learning more about their Santeria
religion. There is after dinner dancing, and then the downstairs
door buzzer rings. Paco goes downstairs to let in their tenant,
Teresa Suarez. You see, the door has a new bolt on it because the
lock was broken, so Teresa's key would not work.
In a matter
of seconds, there is gunfire, and Paco and the young man walking
Teresa home are both killed. Lucia becomes both confused and very
angry. She lets forth a hex on all those attending her husband's
wake. When terrible things begin to happen, more and more people
are frightened and believe Lucia is a witch. Lucia may be forced
out of her home upstairs and the shop she and Paco ran downstairs
as she becomes more disoriented and the danger to her increases.
I found this
second book in the Mind for Murder series to be considerably darker
than the first book, Who Do, Voodoo? Yet I persevered and
found that the actual darkness and foreboding atmosphere was more
reality based than I'd first thought. There are gangs in the area,
which is no surprise for Los Angeles, and the threats they posed
were worse than any hex.
There are also
passages that present good examples of true love. Paco and Lucia
had loved each other for over sixty years, and her devastation at
his loss rang true. Liz and Nick are still feeling their way around
their relationship, taking baby steps, but it is easy to see their
love deepening, and as Liz admits, their sex life is great!
Overall I'd
give this book three stars, and I do recommend that you read the
first book before this one, primarily so you can experience the
character's growth. It's not what I would call a cozy mystery, and
there is a bit of "magic" if you count the hex, but it's
not enough for the book to be considered paranormal. It's more of
an inner-city culture clash crime story driven by greed. I think
it says a lot that despite finding the book dark at first, I kept
reading because I had to know the whodunit and why, and the author
presented a compelling story.
Reviews of other titles in this series
Who
Do Voodoo? #1
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