Customer Reviews

Now You See Her (Regina Cutter Mysteries)

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Nashville City Paper Book club March 24, 2005
Tishy's Cutter Gets a Clue
Saralee says
Are you a fan of mystery series that feature the same character solving murders? If so you are anxiously awaiting the next in the series featuring Stephanie Plum by Janet Evanovich, Kinsey Millhone by Sue Grafton or Dave Robicheaux by James Lee Burke. Make room for Reggie Cutter - the best detective to come along since Sallie Bissell's Mary Crow.

Imagine that you are a woman who is in her 40s. Your adult life has been spent building your husband's career and raising your two children. Your career is taking care of your husband and making sure he does all the right things in order to be promoted in corporate world. As your children reach adulthood your husband trades you in for a new and younger version. What do you do?

This is what happens to Regina "Reggie" Cutter, the character featured in the new mystery series by Vanderbilt Professor Cecelia Tishy. When Reggie Cutter and her husband divorce, she moves to Boston into the home left to her by her eccentric Aunt Jo. She and her aunt both had something in common: the gift or curse of feeling the unexplained or the paranormal. Whether you believe in that kind of stuff or not, Now You See Her (Mysterious Press) is a fun read.

When Cutter moves into her aunt's home she also picks up where her aunt left off with the local police by helping them solve mrders in an unofficial capacity. Cutter's realtor friend wants her to visit Back Bay, the most desirable of Boston neighborhoods, and see if she can pick up any vibes or unfriendly feelings in order to explain the happenings in a mansion. Right before Cutter arrives at the house, she hears someone being murdered.

Soon she meets Frank Devaney, a homicide detective. Devaney and Cutter's Aunt Jo used to solve murders together and Devaney wants Cutter to step into her aunt's shoes. Not an easy feat for anyone, even if you have psychic gifts.

Cutter must find out if a man serving a life sentence for a murder is really guilty; and to solve the crime she must interact with a rising state politician, a rich land developer, a socialite wife and keep her job at the Dress for Success shop where she helps women who are re-entering the workforce.

Tishy succeeds in creating a character that is interesting, vibrant and puzzling as she solves the dilemmas of her daily life and the murder case.

Larry's language

Move over Robert Parker, Dennis Lehane, and Jeremiah Healy. Parker, Lehane and Healy have been the three best mystery writers basing their stories in Boston, but now Nashville's own Tishy has staked her claim to Boston in her newest mystery, Now You See Her.

A sense of place is critically important when starting a new mystery series, and Tishy's Boston setting is grand since the reader can appreciate the references to the social scene, racial tensions, history, justice for the haves and the usual for the have-nots.

Cutter is a survivor in a tough town in a tough situation after her divorce. She is not a whiner and is not afraid to get her hands dirty as she uses her spunk, her smarts, and her strange and hard to understand paranormal impulses. Cutter has the ability to walk into a room and sense that a bad thing has happened, but there is no revelation of detail to Cutter. She is challenged to figure out the criminal specifics so that she can help Boston police detective Devaney solve multiple murder cases, including a 13-year-old homicide and a 100-year-old death.

Tishy has already written one highly successful crime series of novels featuring the more traditional female detective Kate Banning in Cryin' Time, Fall to Pieces and Jealous Heart (Dowling) - all of which are set in Nashville. This latest novel proves that Tishy deserves her reputation as one of the best modern American crime novelists.

In her real life under the name Cecelia Tichi, when not involved in a life of crime, Tishy has written two highly respected academic studies of American muckraking and country music: Exposés and Excess: Muckraking in America (University of Pennsylvania Press) and High Lonesome: The American Culture of Country Music (University of North Carolina Press).

Join us for our next Book Club discussion which will feature The Illuminator (St. Martin's Press) by Nashvillian Brenda Rickman Vantrease.

Saralee Terry Woods is president of BookMan/BookWoman Books, and Larry D. Woods is an attorney and political strategist. Send your comments and requests for future City Paper Book Club discussions to BookClub@nashvillecitypaper.com.

Regina Cutter had it all and then it was gone. Her wealthy husband dumped her in favor of a trophy wife and suddenly her years of effort, sacrifice and support for his career and their marriage didn't matter. Gone were the club memberships, the private plane, and all the other perks and trappings of wealth and power. But, she still had her paranormal ability.

She went back to Boston and moved into her recently departed Aunt's home. She shares custody of her Aunt Jo's dog, affectionately known as "Biscuit," with a rough character that rides a Harley and goes by the name Stark. And just like her Aunt did for years, she unofficially consults with the Boston Police Department in the form of Detective Frank Devaney. As the novel begins, he has a strange case for her.

Devaney, pressured for a quick arrest and conviction, may have sent an innocent man to prison for a murder he did not commit. The victim was Peter Wald, the son of a very prominent politician. The accused killer was Henry Fraiser; a man with no connections and who still to this day claims to be innocent. He may very well have been nothing more than the wrong man in the wrong place at the time. The crime happened years ago during the cocaine years when crime was out of control, the police were overworked and stressed, and everything no matter how small turned into deadly violence. Initially, Regina does not pick up anything and then as he goes to leave, she gets a sensation that is almost to the point of an image for her which gives Devaney an idea to pursue.

But, Regina isn't content to just tell the good detective what she sees and feels. Before long, she is actively sticking her nose into the case, asking questions of everyone and walking the old neighborhood where the crime took place. At the same time, she is also assisting a good friend of hers that sold a house that may or may not be haunted. The buyers are not happy and are very well connected and the outcome of their unsatisfaction could be a financial disaster for all involved. And then, what about the weird scuffling sound Regina heard in the thick fog the other night? Was a man attacked?

Author Cecelia Tishy (also the author of the Kate Banning mystery series) pulls the various threads all together in a Sue Grafton style work and creates an atmospheric read that is very enjoyable. Despite lots of self-doubt, Regina Cutter is an enjoyable character realistically drawn and full of promise. The secondary characters, in particular Stark and Devaney, seem at times a bit stereotypical, but clearly they have the possibility to become realistically drawn individuals. If this becomes a series, the pieces are certainly there to more fully develop these characters and others.

Coincidence does seem to play a strong role in the book whether in the form of the paranormal at just the right time or in the main story where something happens at just the exact right moment. However, that fact along with the fact that the paranormal plays a very small roll, much less than one would expect from reading the jacket copy, are minor quibbles and nothing to really weaken the overall enjoyable read. The result of the work is an interesting and enjoyable novel that may have too little paranormal content for those very interested in the sub-genre while having too much for those readers who simply aren't interested in the paranormal in any form or fashion. Both groups would be wise to cast aside preconceived notions on the subject and enjoy a book that was and is definitely worth reading.

Book Facts:

Now You See Her
By Cecelia Tishy
Mysterious Press
www.mysteriouspress.com
2005
ISBN # 0-89296-796-X
Hardback
$23.95 US
$34.95 Canada


Kevin R. Tipple © 2005

I enjoyed the main character and her psychic ability. However, the book's pace was a little slow for me. A little too much of her going to talk to someone and chit-chatting about irrelevant stuff and then finding one tiny piece of information. It was as if all you had to do was read the last page of every chapter. But it was well-written.

It's always fun to discover a new series and this one's clearly on my watch list!
Engaging characters, plot that's not too obvious, and a strong sense of place.

If you want a great psychic book, read Now You See Her (yes, the exact same title as this one) by Linda Howard. It has everything this one lacks--an interesting psychic, humor, great plot and characters. C. Tishy has a boring psychic, plot, and characters and I was sorry I'd bothered to read it to the end hoping it would get more interesting.

Rebeccasreads recommends NOW YOU SEE HER as an entertaining evening's mystery, replete with believable people, layers of latent evil, & some devious characters all involved in an old murder, street drugs, illegal industrial waste disposal, rotten politicians, ranting street preachers, & a man sentenced to life who is still, after thirteen years, insisting he's innocent.

Reggie Cutter sets out to find out if this is so, helped along by visitations of physical paranormal manifestations, a sinister biker, & a reluctant police detective.

Rarely has a mystery grabbed me so completely from the first few paragraphs. I was so excited to discover this series about Regina Cutter, a newly divorced forty-something mom of two who tries to use her psychic ability to help the Boston Metropolitan Police.

However, the story quickly degenerated from that early high. My complaints, in no particular order:
-The title has absolutely nothing to do with the book. Hate that.
-Too many coincidences -- the plot was wrapped up a bit too neatly with all the strange occurrences tying together.
-At the same time, a lot of loose ends were left... what about Doc? What did he want to do with Regina?
-Random quoting of Bible verses and Dante's Inferno that were distracting and laughable, rather than adding to the story.
-Stark's deus ex machina appearances to save Regina just in the nick of time
-What's this with the psychic who is basically useless? She never seems to pick up anything worth mentioning, yet so much is made of her psychic ability.

What a disappointment. Tishy is a great writer and surely could have fixed many of the issues that made this book so lame. I may try another Regina Cutter mystery in the future, but only if I get a psychic message to do so.

After being displaced by a 'trophy wife' (what I call the 'glamour girl of the Fifties all grown up'), Regina finds her world turned upside down. No more ladies' luncheons (I miss the literary club the most.) and all-expense-paid trips with the savvy clothes, she moved into her legacy, a Boston townhouse bequeathed to her by an aunt. He'd had a lemon of a divorce like mine, only she had the foresight and ability to turn it into 'lemonade.' It takes a very special person to have that sense of humor and good feeling about herself to overcome a devastating change in the quality of living. Unlike me, she had a place to go to; I malingered in the college town so that my child would at least get child support, and yet the professor ruled our lives and controlled everything we did -- the old man still tries even though I am now hundreds of miles away from the small town, but he still has his claws in the youngest son's life ruining any possibility that he will ever be able to crawl out from under the snakepit his dad has him in.

Regina learns that she has inherited from her aunt not only the 'second sight' psychic's ability but her unofficial consultant position with the Boston police department. She has the sixth sense but, at times, wishes she could call on the ESP on demand when she finds herself in some scary positions. "They say nightime fog is romantic, but a woman walking alone on dark city sidewalks gets a Jack the Ripper feeling to the marrow of her bones...and footsteps are approaching coming from behind, amplified by the fog."

Thus, we embark on a Sherlock Holmes-type investigation to see if the wrong man has been behind bars for thirteen years. He was a politician's son and used as a scapegoat as the D.A. was pushed for a quick arrest. He is no Randy Nichols. R.N. is meticious in even letting a person get a warrant, and he won't let his department take on a case they won't win. Now, that is power. She received a note with huge letters HELP ME explaining that the bad evidence has the wrong man behind bars languishing his life away in dire circumstances. She has an optic flash, a burning left side below the rib cage, a fiery sensation of such intensity she wants to cry out, from the prisoner's plea for justice.

There is a mumbling bag lady as one of the clues to what really happened so many years ago. We have some of those here, one is Japanese with her parasol, shopping cart, jackets on in the hottest part of the summer, hoods pulled up, and out riding the buses. We have the mumbling, threatening homeless men walking the sidewalks and hanging around at the bus transfer point asking for money, or else. In her Back Bay house, she hears weird noises and wonders if she is in personal danger from an unknown source. Her investigation back into the past leads to new dangers for her, but she has the willpower to see the thing through.

Cecelia Tishy wrote EXPOSES AND EXCESS, JEALOUS HEART, CRYING TIME, and FALL TO PIECES along with several nonfiction books and articles. She is American lit professor at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, and has started her mystery fiction series featuring Kate Banning. This book will keep you in suspense and find it hard to put down. The scary parts only make it more exciting, and the end result is worth the time it takes to finish such a saucy book, Arthur.

In Boston, Tania Arnot believes that the townhouse she is renting is haunted so she informs her realtor Meg Givens that unless she gets rid of the unwanted ghost, she will see her in court. Not wanting a court date or the negative publicity, Meg turns to the only person she knows who dabbles with the beyond, her friend psychic Regina Cutter. Reluctantly since Regina insists she is no ghostbuster, she agrees as she isn't afraid of no ghost, but finds nothing supernatural about the townhouse.

While the Arnot case seems cold, Boston Homicide Detective Francis Devaney asks Regina for her professional judgment on the Henry Faiser conviction; Henry a black drug dealer was convicted of killing Peter Wald, son of a State Senator, thirteen years ago. Henry insists he is innocent and that the real killer still walks the mean streets. However, her ESP fails to determine anything so Francis goes with the original finding while Regina decides to investigate the old fashion way.

Regina is an interesting character though her paranormal skills seem wanting at least when they count in this story line. The plot is at its best when she fumbles and stumbles with her psychic powers or with reassuring her two adult children, but seems inane when Regina turns amateur sleuth investigating the homicide. Fans will enjoy Regina paranormal detective but wonder about Regina investigator. Though that detour takes away from an interesting tale, readers of a different kind of heroine will enjoy NOW YOU SEE HER, but expect more of the psychic than the inquiring shamus in future adventures.

Harriet Klausner

Another psychic mystery - Reggie Cutter is starting her life over in the Boston house that she inherited from her aunt - another psychic. Reggie is new to her abilities - but she still tries to assist police detective Frank Devaney the way her aunt had before she died. Reggie gets strange vibes in areas where there was a fire and murder 13 years ago - but she doesn't understand her skills well enough to apply them to the clues she's getting. I wasn't able to finish this story - I didn't enjoy the way the author wove the story together and many of the actions Reggie took were extremely unrealistic. This just wasn't a story for me, but I hope that others enjoy it.