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Melody Meyfeldt wants to create a spooky haunted house - and it's certainly horrifying when her burning body is flung from an upstairs window just as her interior decorators arrive. It would be enough to put anyone off, but Carmela (starring in her seventh scrapbook mystery) can't resist the higher payments offered by Melody's silent partner, who is still desperate to open opposite the horror convention DiscordaCon. Money isn't easy to come by, especially in recession-wracked, post-Katrina New Orleans and doubly hard especially for someone going through a difficult divorce. So Carmela and her best friend Ava (proprietress of Juju Voodoo) take on the official job to turn an old mansion into Medusa Manor and the unofficial job of finding out who killed Melody. Why Melody died is going to be quickly guessed well before the characters figure it out; anyone moderately versed in any kind of mystery even at the Nancy Drew level is going to spot the clues. (If memory serves, Nancy herself has solved two similar crimes, only without the flaming defenestration.) I was also slightly disappointed that the horror convention never figures in the plot; it seemed to be mentioned quite a lot for something that we don't see. Who did it isn't obvious or disappointing, and the plotline has a plethora of possibilities. Was it the grieving widower with a penchant for memorial jewelry? The silent partner? The eccentric tour guide who always seems to turn up in the oddest places? With the exception of the easily-guessable motive, TRAGIC MAGIC is a good, solid read, exactly what can be expected from the prolific Childs. As usual, she is more than generous not only with scrapbooking projects scattered throughout the text and added at the end, but she adds almost a dozen recipes as well. As usual, Childs delivers a cozy with both comfort food and comfort reading.
Reviewed by Linnea Dodson, October 2009
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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