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Inside the Cover Book Review Review by Natasha Gapinski
Tea and Witchery Marie Dees Hard Shell Word Factory April 2005 236 pp. Mystery / Paranormal fiction Amazon.com price: $12.95
Tea and Witchery, Marie Dees’ first novel, is foremost a classic whodunit: murders are committed and the culprits must be stopped before someone else dies. But what makes the tale unique is the setting-- Cassadaga, Florida, a real town-- and the characters: a bunch of psychics, spiritualists, and witches. Cassadaga was founded as a spiritualist community 110 years ago and bills itself as “The Psychic Center of the World.” Visitors today can meet with “town-certified” psychics for readings or shop for New Age books and gifts. Crafting a murder story in this already curious place was an inspired move.
As a person who would never pay for a psychic reading, I wasn’t sure at first that I was the best person to evaluate this tale. Did I, like Fox Mulder on “The X-Files,” have to “want to believe” in this whole business to enjoy this book? Not at all, as it turns out. Marie Dees has given each character a great balance of irritating and redeeming qualities, so I don’t feel she’s on any side as she tells her story about the psychics, witches, and skeptics. She doesn’t judge as a storyteller, and never resorts to stereotypes over individuals.
The main character, Lynn, is an outsider visiting her aunt Anthea in Cassadaga for the first time. As she arrives, tensions among residents with differing goals for the little community break out into arguments, arson, threats, blackmail, and ultimately murder. Since the first murder weapon was a poisoned batch of her aunt’s homegrown tea, Lynn and her allies must uncover clues in the course of protecting Anthea from murder charges. Along the way, Lynn also finds an unexpected love interest.
Lynn is the least fully drawn character in the story-- she’s kind of the blank slate that everything happens around or to. As such, she felt like my surrogate in the unfamiliar world of Cassadaga. We both spent the first part of the book trying to understand this new place. There are unusual rules governing who can live where, and what kinds of spiritual or ordinary business they are allowed to engage in. I had to absorb all of that to see how a local coven of witches or one person’s obsession with profit might clash with the town’s spiritualist agenda. At the same time, the first few pages of the book introduce about a dozen characters with many similar beliefs and traits. There’s the local minister who uses his psychic strength to protect the town, the headstrong and dramatic young tarot card king, the crabby bookshop owner, several wannabes, and so on. It takes a while to learn who’s who, let alone sort out the dynamics amongst them, but patience rewards, and things do become clear as time passes.
The love story is the only element of the book that feels like it is driven by a bit of paranormal intervention. Even the murders happen by fairly conventional means, not through cult rituals or vengeful ghosts. The mystery unravels in the old-fashioned way, through clues and deduction. This is a nice balance, given the eeriness of the setting. I didn’t find the identity of the killer to be obvious. I had the satisfying reader experience of seeing Ms. Dees tie up all the loose ends neatly just after I had decided it was unlikely she would pull it off.
I think this book would be perfect vacation reading. I find that stories set in Florida, the land of the tacky plastic lawn flamingo, tend to have a relaxing playfulness that creeps in and can keep even a murder mystery light. (Think Carl Hiaasen’s Florida novels.) Tea and Witchery is a little mystery that’s big on character. It does a fine job of walking the difficult line between taking itself too seriously and mocking itself, and delivers something fresh and fun.
Natasha Gapinski is an entertainment writer and researcher in Central Florida. When she’s not facing a deadline, she likes to play online video games, read some of the many books in the world, and assist her husband in his quest to make their two cats the most spoiled felines in the U.S. You can contact her at Natasha.Gapinski@gmail.com.
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