Poison to Purge Melancholy (The Pat Montello Mysteries) [Paperback]

Elena Santangelo (Author)

Book Description

Series: The Pat Montello Mysteries | Publication Date: September 8, 2006

Pat Montello would never spend Christmas away from her huge clan if she didn't think her boyfriend Hugh Lee was "Mr. Right." A weekend in Williamsburg, Virginia, with Hugh's family should be fun, right! Beset with inexplicable aches, anxiety attacks and invisible kisses under the mistletoe, Pat realises Hugh's mum's old house is haunted. Hiding embarrassing bouts with spirits from her potential in-laws transforms Pat's holiday into a crazed damage control mission. Finding refuge in Williamsburg's post-Revolution past, Pat uncovers a two-centuries-old mystery...and it seems murder may be on the horizon in the present, as well. Alternating between 1783 and contemporary life, Elena Santangelo presents two tantalising mysteries spanning the centuries. With a smidgen of ghostly antics in the mix, the result is a refreshing spin on the mystery genre.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Elena Santangelo (Pennsylvania) is an award-winning short story writer and an avid fan of both history and ghost stories. Her mystery and ghost tales have appeared in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, Murderous Intent, and in the anthology Death Knell. An Agatha Award finalist, she is the author of Hang My Head & Cry (St. Martin's), Blood Possessed (Bella Rosa Bks), and the forthcoming Poison to Purge Melancholy and Fear Itself (Midnight Ink).

Product Details

• Paperback: 432 pages
• Publisher: MIDNIGHT INK (September 8, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0738708909
• ISBN-13: 978-0738708904
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.4 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,752,999 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

ELENA SANTANGELO pens the Possessed Mystery series, including Agatha Award finalist BY BLOOD POSSESSED. The series features laid-off office clerk turned ghostbuster, Pat Montella, and her 91 year-old sidekick, Miss Maggie. These novels combine murder, ghosts, history, and a protagonist brought up on Italian cooking and superstitions. Latest in the series is FEAR ITSELF, in which a ghost from the Great Depression helps Pat solve a present day murder in her hometown.

Elena's Twins Mystery Series begins with the Kindle-exclusive novel TWO-FACED, which introduces Gen Ziegler, forensic psychologist, and her mirror-image twin, Sara. The series continues most recently with DOUBLE CROSS, where the sisters become stranded in a West Texas town, surrounded by secrets, outlaws, danger, and murder.

DAME AGATHA'S SHORTS is Elena's armchair companion to Christie's more than one hundred and fifty short stories. DAME AGATHA'S SHORTS won the 2009 Agatha Award for Best Non-Fiction and is an Anthony Award and Macavity Award finalist.

Sixteen of Elena's short stories have been published in the United States and Japan and most are available on Kindle. She co-edited the short story anthology, DEATH KNELL IV.

She has chronicled the 1945 journal of her uncle, Joseph Chicco, which you can read at 1945chicco.blogspot.com.

Visit Elena's website at www.elenasantangelo.com and read her writing blog at elenasantangelo.blogspot.com.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Another intriguing historical paranormal mystery, September 15, 2006

By 

Lesa Holstine (Glendale, AZ) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Poison to Purge Melancholy (The Pat Montello Mysteries) (Paperback)

What could be worse than arriving at your future in-laws at Christmastime without your boyfriend, and with his sullen teenage daughter? How about having your gynecologist show up for the family celebration? How about feeling the presence of ghosts in a colonial house in Williamsburg?

Elena Santangelo brings back Pat Montella in this fascinating mystery. Pat has communicated with ghosts before, linking murders from the past with current events. This time, she promised her boyfriend she will have nothing further to do with ghosts. Then she feels fear when she is in the old parts of Gladys Lee's colonial home, and even feels the affects of poisoning. In a parallel storyline, a music master in Williamsburg in 1783 witnesses the illness and subsequent death of a lodger in the Carson house, the house that Gladys Lee lives in two hundred years later.

Santangelo does a wonderful job in combining romance, history, mystery and the paranormal while writing two storylines, one set in colonial Williamsburg, one two centuries later. Pat Montella and her mentor, Miss Maggie Shelby, are fascinating, well-rounded characters who are intelligent enough to make the link between events that occur so far apart.

Highly recommended for lovers of American history and historical mystery.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Deadly Holidays, July 31, 2008

By 

Nash Black "Troubadour" (Jamestown, KY) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

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This review is from: Poison to Purge Melancholy (The Pat Montello Mysteries) (Paperback)

Pat Montella arrives in Colonial Williamsburg escorting a sullen teenager, her future step-daughter. Beth Ann's father Hugh Lee and Miss Maggie Shelby will arrive later in the day so Pat must face her prospective mother-in-law on her own.
Pat has made a promise to Hugh of no more ghosts, but the spirit world will not allow her to keep her pledge. Elena Santangelo has the skill to move the reader back and forth from current time to the 18th century without a feeling of disruption. Ghosts of Christmas past collide with murder in current time in a house filled with doctors who have constant battle of one upmanship. Pat is drawn against her will back to the past and an ancient murder while the family consumes a feast of colonial abundance.
Miss Maggie devours the food and the clues while enlightening the reader on early Virginia history, which makes for an unexpected, but satisfying conclusion.
This is an excellent series for all the right seasons. It has ghosts, murder, romance and mystery.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A series that grows in the telling, September 15, 2009

By 

Sheathe "sheathe" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Poison to Purge Melancholy (The Pat Montello Mysteries) (Paperback)

I've read all the Pat Montella mysteries, and they just keep getting better. "Poison" is a terrific read...carefully researched, tightly written, and with characters you care about in spite of their flaws. Santangelo's settings are so real, so vivid, they made me yearn for Christmas in August.