Thursday, October 31, 2024

Book Review: Dead Witch on a Bridge

Title: Dead Witch on a Bridge

Author: Gretchen Galway

Date: 2019

Publisher: EtonField

ISBN: 978-1-939872-19-7

Quote: "As soon as I saw the body in the middle fo the bridge, I knew I was too late."

Alma Bellrose arrived too late to save an older man with whom she once had a "short fling," whose daughter ("Birdie" Crow) is now the closest thing she has to a friend.  Apparently he died before a careless driver ran over his body. The coroner clears Alma of suspicion, but someone was driving Birdie's car...

Alma has to solve the mystery. Not in the usual way, because this is not a real suburb of San francisco. It's a suburb of a San Francisco in an alternate world where fairies, gnomes, demons, and witches are real. In fact, Alma, her ex-boyfriend, and most of the people she knows are witches--not in the sense of practicing an alternative religion, but in the classic TV-movie sense of having inherited magical powers and studied how to use them. Even awkward half-grown Birdie has inherited unsuspected magical powers. And the dog who adopts Alma is not a natural dog, either. 

All who enjoy this kind of silliness are in for a treat. Galway mixes hilarious fairy-tale tropes with the rules of a good, clean mystery story: only one murder, some danger to adults who can defend themselves, no harm done to children or animals, no explicit sex or even Formerly Unprintable Words. I laughed out loud more than once. 

There is a series. One or more of these books would make a nice Halloween present to someone who's outgrown all interest in sacks of candy.

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