Caught Dead Handed by Carol J. Perry

She's not a psychic--she just plays one on TV. Most folks associate the city of Salem, Massachusetts with witches, but for Lee Barrett, it's home. This October she's returned to her hometown--where her beloved Aunt Ibby still lives--to interview for a job as a reporter at WICH-TV. But the only opening is for a call-in psychic to host the late night horror movies. It seems the previous host, Ariel Constellation, never saw her own murder coming. Lee reluctantly takes the job, but when she starts seeing real events in the obsidian ball she's using as a prop, she wonders if she might really have psychic abilities. To make things even spookier, it's starting to look like Ariel may have been an actual practicing witch--especially when O'Ryan, the cat Lee and Aunt Ibby inherited from her, exhibits some strange powers of his own. With Halloween fast approaching, Lee must focus on unmasking a killer--or her career as a psychic may be very short lived. . .

This is going to be a rambling review! Spoilers ahead!!

In one line: If you like a more city-life, grungy mystery and you don't mind tougher language and backstories, you might enjoy this; if you are softhearted like me, I'd say pass, unless you're really into the TV/Salem setting.

To expand: This is a fairly well-written book, and I feel bad not giving it more stars. However, because I am softhearted (see above, haha), I struggled with this. I did not particularly care for most of the characters (although the actual love interest was pretty cute!). There's also much harsher language than I would expect from a cozy–and it's specifically cruel about women. And despite the main character having real psychic abilities, almost all the characters make a point of going out of their way to deride tarot, crystals, mindfulness, “Gypsy” culture, or anything remotely witchy. Unless this is setting up tension for the rest of the series, it felt unnecessary and demeaning. It was as though the characters were all trying to tell me, the reader, that “hey, I know, I'm just like you! I don't buy into this!” but . . . I, as a reader, am not like that. Certainly not in such a vocal, dismissive way.

And the really big problem I had is also a MAJOR SPOILER. One of the characters is trans, and their origin story is extremely abusive. It felt like the tropey “there is one LGBTQ+ character in this story, and they will never have a good day” narrative. That made it very difficult to read . . . but not for the reasons that the author intended. Now, the author may be entirely correct about the particular issues this character was dealing with and how they manifest, but still–the treatment of the character was increasingly degrading and infantilizing, I thought.

It was also pretty darn obvious from about 60% through the story who the culprit was, and what was going on. Perhaps that's me with my modern understanding talking–the book is a little dated, after all. (Another BIG SPOILER: I still would have preferred that Scott was Willie! That would have avoided the twist that felt like it was played out just for shock value.)

Overall, I came away feeling vaguely upset and disappointed, but again–my idea of “cozy” is a just little more light and inclusive. Take my opinions with a grain of salt!