Book Review: Murder Go Round

On this Mysterious Monday, we bring you a brief review of the latest book in the Witch City mystery series from Carol J. Perry. It’s called Murder Go Round, and it has so much going for it, it’s hard to know where to start. So I’ll start with the basics.

A scryer, a storage locker, and a Russian princess

Lee Barrett is a young widow who lives in a pretty terrific house in Salem, Massachusetts, with her aunt Ibby. Her boyfriend is police detective Pete Mondello. In Murder Go Round, Lee and Ibby “win” an abandoned storage locker at one of those auction thingamies (just like on TV). Inside they discover some fascinating things: an old wooden carousel horse, a samovar, a cuckoo clock. So far so good. But things soon take a turn for the weird.

You see, Lee has a certain ability that she’s not always thrilled about but that she’s learning to live with. She can see things, and I don’t mean the regular sorts of everyday things. She’s a scryer, otherwise known as a gazer. Give her a shiny, reflective surface, and she’s likely to have a vision, and in this case, the vision she has is of a dead man. Before long, there is a real dead man to deal with, and Lee and Ibby get all involved in the investigation, because it all seems to have something to do with that stuff from the storage locker.

It also seems to have something to do with Czar Nicholas II, as well as a group of Russians who fled to America in 1915, each carrying something very valuable. This would explain why a supposed long-lost Russian princess is acting all weird about the storage locker. Or would it?

Don’t forget the cat

This series also features an excellent yellow striped cat named O’Ryan, who used to belong to a witch and may have been her familiar. In any case, he is familiar with solving mysteries by providing little clues. The trick, as always, is getting the humans to (a) notice and (b) understand the clues. Not an easy task, but O’Ryan and the other “special” cats of Salem are up to it.

Our verdict

As I mentioned earlier, Murder Go Round has a lot going for it. Of course we love the cat in this series, but we also enjoy the humans and their relationships. We’ve read the Witch City mysteries from the start, and Lee Barrett now feels like a good friend we get to visit once a year or so. This book provides a healthy dose of two of our other favorite things: world history and family history. Lee and Ibby spend a fair amount of time tracking down what happened to that group of Russians from a century ago. It is all just so interesting and juicy … I am salivating just thinking of it. And as always, Perry’s writing is just a joy to read, and the plot is perfectly structured.

If you haven’t the Witch City series, you are really missing out.

Very highly recommended!

A note on the "Paws Up" system: Miss C gives either one or two paws up. One paw is for a good read; two paws is for a great read. She never gives three or four paws because that would require her to lie on her back...and Miss C does not do that!

We received a free copy of this book in exchange for a fair and honest review. We wouldn’t tell you it was good unless we really liked it!

The link below is an Amazon Associates link. If you purchase the book through this link, old SoLT and I could get some coin for our kibble account. Thank you!