Scan barcode
A review by showell
Charmed to Death: An Ophelia and Abby Mystery by Shirley Damsgaard
2.0
My five year old daughter told me earlier this week that the secret to finding good books is to look for a cat on the cover. So when it came time to find a mystery with which to while away a lazy Saturday afternoon I picked this one off my to-read shelf. The cat on the cover is adorable.
If you like your mysteries solved not by detective work but through a series of psychic visions and rune-casting, this is the series for you. Spoon-fed answers from the great beyond are not my preferred detection method, but once I stopped expecting Ophelia to actually use her brain and concentrated on the relationship between Ophelia and Abby and Ophelia and Comacho, I liked the book much better.
Damsgaard is a good storyteller, just as long as you expect the right thing out of the story. This book isn't actually about finding a killer, it's about a woman coming to terms with her psychic abilities, and forging an uneasy detente with an adversary from the past. The mystery, such as it is, is the vehicle for that, but Damsgaard is no Agatha Christie. I knew who the killer was half away through. Then it was just a matter of waiting for Ophelia to catch up. I finished the book bc Damsgaard got me caring enough about her characters to want to get some resolution for them, but I'm not sure it's enough to get me to pick up another.
If you like your mysteries solved not by detective work but through a series of psychic visions and rune-casting, this is the series for you. Spoon-fed answers from the great beyond are not my preferred detection method, but once I stopped expecting Ophelia to actually use her brain and concentrated on the relationship between Ophelia and Abby and Ophelia and Comacho, I liked the book much better.
Damsgaard is a good storyteller, just as long as you expect the right thing out of the story. This book isn't actually about finding a killer, it's about a woman coming to terms with her psychic abilities, and forging an uneasy detente with an adversary from the past. The mystery, such as it is, is the vehicle for that, but Damsgaard is no Agatha Christie. I knew who the killer was half away through. Then it was just a matter of waiting for Ophelia to catch up. I finished the book bc Damsgaard got me caring enough about her characters to want to get some resolution for them, but I'm not sure it's enough to get me to pick up another.