Dolores Stewart Riccio Ladies Courting Trouble

Ladies Courting Trouble

Dolores Stewart Riccio

Kensington, Mar 2006, $14.00, 320 pp.

ISBN: 0758209878

In Plymouth, Massachusetts, Wicca practitioner Cass Shipton gives a talk on the origins of Halloween to the Garden of Gethsemane Ladies League members; afterward everyone nibbled on the food, but soon complain of stomach problems. Cass though feeling ill realizes the bitter aftertaste in the brownies was hemlock. One attendee, chocoholic Lydia Craig died from the poisoning; no one knows who provided the brownies.

After a stomach pump and finally recovering, Cass attends the Kitchen Magic cooking show on South Shore TV Access when once again the participants are poisoned this time from pumpkin cranberry bread; Cass still not having her stomach fully back did not partake of the poisoned food. While Detectives Stern and Mann struggle with the case and Cass' lover is with Greenpeace in Florida and Greece, Cass and her circle of friends begin using their otherworldly powers as well as inductive reasoning to ferret out a killer even as they wonder if the motive had something to do with Lydia's strange will.

The fourth Circle of Five paranormal mystery is a lighthearted charming cozy that sub-genre readers will appreciate due to the solid cast that make believers out of even skeptical readers. The investigation is cleverly developed on two fronts with Cass at the point of both, though predominantly through the psychic abilities of the Circle members. The likable cast makes for a fine who-done-it, Wiccan-style; newcomers will feel the spell to seek out the previous three Cass and company capers while fans of the series will once again taste the magic.