Description (from publisher):
"Who Do, Voodoo? the first novel in Rochelle Staab's thrilling new Mind for Murder Mystery series features no-nonsense Liz Cooper, a Los Angeles psychologist forced to embrace the occult to clear her best friend of murder...
When Liz Cooper's friend Robin Bloom finds an unusual tarot card tacked to her front door, Liz writes it off as a prank. Robin refuses to ignore the omen--her late husband drew the same card, the three of swords, in a reading the night before he was killed in a car accident. As more cards and darker threats appear, Liz realizes someone very dangerous is upping the ante.
Liz turns to her brother's ex-college roommate, occult expert Nick Garfield. As Nick leads her into the voodoo community to locate the origin of the deck, she can't ignore their attraction to each other. Then a woman is found murdered and Robin becomes the prime suspect. Determined to clear her friend, Liz joins forces with Nick to unravel otherworldly secrets and seek help from beyond--or risk being outwitted by a cunning killer..."
My thoughts:
Cozy mystery authors, publishers or whomever, take note, this book is a great example of how a cozy mystery should be written. The setting takes place in Los Angeles, which is rare for a cozy mystery because they usually take place in a small town or village, but the author was able to pull off the big city feel but with the coziness that this genre requires. Liz Cooper is a wonderful lead character and her romance with Nick Garfield is featured in the plot, but it's not overly done and has the right mixture to draw the reader into the story. For some reason, I didn't read the back cover before I started this and I thought that the setting would be in New Orleans or Louisiana because of the "voodoo" in the title. Silly me. I was surprised to see that it was set in Los Angeles which is not the place you normally associate with voodoo, but it works. It was interesting to see how voodoo is a little different there than from Louisiana.
The thing that I really liked about this book was that I learned a lot while reading. I learned that there are different types of voodoo and found in it a very interesting topic. Don't worry, I didn't learn enough to start creating voodoo dolls and cursing people or anything, but it's something that I didn't know a lot about before I picked this book up. Besides that, the plot was flawless. I really enjoyed the characters and how they interact with each other and I didn't have the murderer pegged at the end, which is a huge plus. I can see this series becoming one of my favorites very easily. It has a hint of romance, occult and mystery and has enough twists and turns to make this a very interesting read. LOVED it and I am now reading the second in the series Bruja Brouhaha and I hope that it's everything that the debut was.
Overall Rating: 5/5
Title: Who Do, Voodoo?
Author: Rochelle Staab
Series: Mind for Murder Mystery #1
Publisher: Berkley
Publication Date: November 1, 2011
Pages: 304
Genre: Cozy Mystery
Disclaimer: This book was selected from my personal library by myself and I reviewed this book without compensation of any kind. All thoughts and opinions are solely mine.
