Soon the city is besieged by “a murder of crows” (the collective noun for a large group of the black birds) attracting ornithologists from near and far who come to study the eerie phenomenon. The city's abuzz with suggestions to get rid of the birds wreaking havoc with people’s gardens and leaving excrement everywhere.
That’s when Lee Barrett, the heroine of Carol J. Perry’s popular Witch City mystery series, decides to investigate, and readers are off on a romp through Salem’s Wiccan community to find out if someone — or something — is bumping off witches.
“I’m Lee Barrett, nee Maralee Kowolski, thirty-two, red-haired, Salem-born, orphaned early, married once and widowed young,” writes Perry in the first few pages of her novels to introduce her heroine.
This is Perry’s sixth book in her well-liked series, and it doesn’t disappoint. Lest all the hocus-pocus sounds too much for some whodunnit fans, it’s a great read in the true fashion of a “cozy,” a la Agatha Christie, where your outwardly normal and friendly next door neighbor turns out to be a dastardly serial murderer. Perry spins an excellent, well-written plot that keeps you guessing right to the last page.
While Lee is not a witch, she does have an uncanny ability to see visions in shiny, reflective objects, an occult talent called scrying. Her Wiccan friend is host of Tarot Time with River North, a popular phone-in show on Salem’s WICH-TV.
Lee and her good-looking police detective boyfriend Pete Mondello solve murders occurring in the fabled town of Salem, home to the infamous 17th-century witch hysteria. With the help of Lee’s Aunt Ibby, a research librarian, O’Ryan, the big, yellow-eyed, orange tabby cat, and a host of colorful characters, Lee and Pete catch killers, but not without a lot of misdirection and innovative plot twists.
In this book, Lee is maid of honor for a former student at the Tabitha Trumbull Academy of the Arts, known as the Tabby, where she teaches TV production. She graduated from Boston’s Emerson College, renowned for arts and communications. During her ill-fated marriage to NASCAR driver Johnny Barrett, she lived in Florida and was a host and producer for a TV shopping channel.
It Takes a Coven features familiar characters from earlier books in the series, as well as some new ones. The baker for the wedding cake is a magician (the sleight of hand kind) and the ring bearer for the wedding is a talking crow named Poe. So amidst the fittings for bridesmaid dresses and tasting wedding cakes, Lee must contend with the murders, the crows, and the ancient spell book that River possesses. It once belonged to Bridget Bishop, the first witch hung in Salem (whose apparition appears), and the Wiccans want to find a way to return this book to the other side so the crows vanish and things will right themselves in Salem.
Perry’s at her best here, and it’s a fun, exciting read, even if you’re not a fan of the occult. There’s good detective work using forensics, and real facts. Perry was born on Halloween Eve in Salem, so she knows the city. She also does her research (in this book we learn a lot about crows and in an earlier book, Grave Errors, readers learned about commercial laundries).
And these are not without humor…in a tip of the hat, sometimes Pete calls his girlfriend “Nancy,” cautioning her to be wary of real police work. This is a really fun series, good light reading that keeps you guessing, and Perry’s a fine wordsmith. Look for Bells, Spells and Murder in October.
Read Nano Riley's Seven Questions interview with Carol J. Perry here.
It Takes a Coven | Carol J. Perry | Kensington Publishing, May 2018 | caroljperry.com
This article appears in Jul 12-19, 2018.