Witch Way To Murder
Shirley Damsgaard
Avon, Sept 2005, $6.99, 304 pp.
ISBN 0060793481

Four years ago in a psychic vision, Ophelia Jensen saw her best friend die; she badgered the police until they put out a missing person's report. They found his murdered body four days later and since Ophelia was the last person to see him, she became their number one suspect. Between being harassed by the police and a reporter and feeling guilty because she was unable to save him and Ophelia developed PTSD.

She moved to Summerset, Iowa to be near her grandmother Abby who is a witch and a practitioner of magick. She keeps everyone but Abby at a distance until Rick Davis comes to town. She doesn't believe for one minute he is a chemical salesman as he is interested in the county's anhydrous ammonia thefts (an ingredient in cooking meth). They stumble over the remains of a murdered man, Rick is beaten up, and she is warned off by threatening letters and a dead coyote left on her doorstep. Ophelia would leave if she could but she comes to believe her grandmother who says it is her and Rick's destiny to fight the evil that has pervaded the town.

Every once in a while a mystery comes along that is so refreshingly original with characters that are totally unique that readers will need to obtain it immediately. WITCH WAY TO MURDER is one such special book. Ophelia goes from thinking of her psi powers as a curse to a desire to learn magick; Abby is everyone's favorite grandmother. These three dimensional characters burrow their way into the reader's heart from the start. It will be hard to wait for the next book in this beguiling series.

Harriet Klausner