Customer Reviews

The Trouble with Witches (Ophelia & Abby Mysteries, No. 3) (An Ophelia and Abby Mystery)

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

3rd in the Ophelia & Abby series, librarian Ophelia has opened up to learning about her psychic abilities from her grandmother, Abby. When they get a request from a friend to help find a missing girl who is reputed to have moved to a cult-like community who investigate psychic abilities, the grandmother/granddaughter team decide to go to the area in Minnesota on vacation to see what they can find out. Ophelia immediately happens upon Tink, the niece of the Finches, the psychic investigators, and feels an immediate connection with her. Tink has made friends with a local Native American shaman, despite his open bitterness against whites. After a strange encounter with a spooky shack in the woods, Ophelia finds another body - this time of a local war veteran of dubious sanity. When Tink confesses to the murder to protect her friend, Ophelia decides that she must find the basis of the paranormal mysteries in the area to clear Tink's reputation and find the missing girl, whose absence seems to take second place to the other mysteries in the small town. Great series!! Love the work, story, and paranormal aspects. Can't wait for the next one, WITCH HUNT, in April.

The Trouble with Witches is the third book in the Ophelia and Abby series. Like its predecessors, it is a great paranormal mystery. Abby and Ophelia are very realistic and likable because their magic doesn't make them perfect or all knowing. They make errors in judgment and mistakes. Rick from Witch Way to Murder calls Ophelia to see if she and Abby would be willing to help him try to locate a missing teen who is a friend of his family. Since she feels that she has just let Henry Comancho down, it doesn't take long for Ophelia to pack up with Abby and head north to Minnesota. Why does Rich think they can help? Well, the young woman was last seen in the company of a paranormal and psychic research group that might be a little cultish. Since neither the group members nor the locals are interested in talking with a reporter, Rick thinks Abby and company might have better luck since they are witches and definitely not reporters. Almost immediately, they draw the notice of the research group members. At the same time, Ophelia starts experiencing odd things, meets a curious Native American, and continues her disturbing habit of tripping over bodies. Another great book in the series!

When Abby and Ophelia learn that a young girl has disappeared in PSI, a remote Minnesota commune of psychics, the pair of witches take a vacation to see if they can help locate her. They are quickly joined by Ophelia's friend and employee, Darci, who loves an adventure as much as anyone.

What they discover is a small town with more secrets than just PSI, including a lakeside resident with a hit and run driving record, a Native American veteran with a justifiable anger at whites and a whole lot of shamanistic talent.

What breaks the trio's heart though is learning another young girl, Tink, silver haired and lavender eyed, with strong talents as a medium who is being drugged and spelled to keep her talents in check.

The trio are in a desperate race to solve the mystery of what PSI is about so they can save both missing girls--and ultimately themselves. "Trouble" is moving away from the tea cosy mystery where the books started and into a bit more heavy mystery-paranormal.

Character growth for both Ophelia and Darci is very well done. Ophelia is beginning to accept her own magical gifts and through her acceptance, we begin to learn how her magical heritage works as well. Darci is also coming into her own, through Ophelia's mentoring and showing herself to be a clever and intelligent person as well as a beautiful one.

The one-half star demerit is for a somewhat muddy plot. With the addition of so much local color and Tink's plight, their original purpose sometimes gets lost. However, this is still a very well-written and interesting book and a valuable addition to the series.

This series is turning out to be very enjoyable. Well written, likeable characters, fun hometown, interesting situations. This one in particular even got me through a bout of the 'flu -- it has to be good to hold my attention when I'm sick, feverish, aching and restless. My friends and I exchange books (money for non-essentials being hard to come by), and this is one series they always ask, "Is the next one out yet?" If you enjoy cozy mysteries, this is the series for you.

Ophelia and and Abby are asked to help out with a missing teen.
They suspect she is caught up in a psycic cult and set out to help find her. They rent a cabin on a lake near the compound and strange things are happening.
Lights, shadows and a cranky bitter indian shaman help the mix.
This book is a great page turner and the ending is just great. Cannot wait till the next one in the series.
You just gotta love Abby and Darci!

I loved the third book of the Ophelia and Abby mysteries!! The character development was so much better. I found myself glued to each page wondering what would happen next.

This is an excellent entry into the series. I love the interaction between the "real" magic and what was for show, as well as the introduction of a native american magician. This book is fun from start to finish, interesting, and the ending is not painfully obvious from the get go, as it often can be with mysteries. Ophelia is brave, Darcy is surprisingly smart, Abbey is talented, and the new characters who are introduced are interesting and well developed. If you love these characters already this is sure to satisfy your craving for more!

Ophelia finds herself in another mess in this one. Comacho is gone as quickly as he came, but now it seems like all he was there for was for Ophelia to see that he really wasn't her enemy and was in fact a good man, unlike her first impression. His leaving and her helplessness to find his missing person, tug on her heartstrings so much that she's willing to try again when Rick calls in a favor. And when dealing with witches, eventually there was going to have to be some kind of cult involved. Rick is as savvy as ever, a good person for Ophelia to trust and bounce her ideas off of. Abby is wonderful in this book, definitely full of witchy spunk and wisdom. I'm also happy about Darci getting to join them on the mystery. It felt like the gang was back together again, and thankfully with less fumbling than was in the first book. The Native American themes were interesting in this book and I wish they could have been expanded upon more. Walks Quietly was an interesting character and I hope he'll be seen again. Because of him, Ophelia comes to appreciate more the importance of omens and trusting her instincts. I thought it was kind of funny that Brandi wasn't a bigger feature in the book. The mystery that they come to solve is not really in the direction that Ophelia's dreams and observations lead her, as she comes to be more curious about Tink. This was actually the first mystery I was not able to pick out the murderer by the sixth chapter because it was more complex and weaved together better than some of the last. I had no idea who the murderer was until Ophelia and everyone else figured it out. I also liked the motivation behind the cult, that for the most part they were working on understanding psychic abilities and even though there was a dastardly plan involved it wasn't hokey at all.

Fast shipment. Item as described. This is a great series, by the way! Thank you.

After reading _Witch Way to Murder_, I found myself craving another Ophelia and Abby mystery and went to the library for my "fix." They didn't have book two, _Charmed to Death_, but they did have book three, _The Trouble with Witches_. I decided, what the heck, you can usually read these cozy mystery series out of order anyway. Often, authors will only allude vaguely to events of previous books in case you're reading them out of sequence.

Well, I figured out pretty quickly that Shirley Damsgaard doesn't do that. I have now thoroughly spoiled myself for _Charmed to Death_ until enough time passes that I forget the killer's name. But _The Trouble with Witches_ was a lot of fun anyway. The plot revolves around Ophelia and Abby's investigation of a psychic-research organization that may or may not be a cult responsible for the disappearance of a teenage girl.

Whatever happened in _Charmed to Death_ must have been good for Ophelia. She still has trouble sometimes making herself be sociable, but she's not the rude, standoffish Ophelia of Witch Way to Murder. She lets more people past her armor now and it makes her more interesting (and much less irritating).

Here be SPOILERS!

If there's anything about Ophelia that bugged me this time around, it's that sometimes she needed a good whack with the clue stick. She's sometimes incredibly oblivious when the plot needs her to be. There are two characters who, it's said time and time again, have exactly the same outlandish hair color. Yet when Ophelia finds a dead body with hair of that color, she jumps to the conclusion that Person A is dead when it's just as likely that Person B is the one who bit the dust.

The central red herring, though, works really well; I was suspicious of the wrong person until the very end.

I'll be reading more in this series, even if I do need to wait a while before backtracking to _Charmed to Death_!