Kirkus Review
A witch must harness all her newly found powers to solve a series of crises in small-town Wilfred, Oregon. Soon after human remains are found in a decayed outhouse due for demolition, Helen Garlington thinks she sees her long-missing husband, Martin, on a TV quiz show using the name Bruno Gates. Helen begs Wilfred librarian Josie Way to track down Martin, who left a pregnant Helen more than 40 years ago. Josie, an expert researcher who's had some experience with crime, reluctantly agrees, although her law enforcement officer boyfriend, Sam, who doesn't know she's a witch, is skeptical. Josie, who lives in the local library along with her black cat, Rodney, can often get answers just by using her powers to question the books. When Gates refuses to take her call, she resorts to research. Oddly enough, The Complete Original Illustrated Sherlock Holmes keeps turning up. At last Gates calls and denies being Martin, but he agrees to come to Wilfred to put Helen's doubts to rest. As soon as he arrives, Helen knows he's not her husband, but unfortunately for him, his kindness isn't repaid and he's found dead the next morning. Is it possible that someone else was fooled, someone who'd kill him? Moved to act by his death, Josie finally opens the Sherlock Holmes book, only to have the great detective jump off the page and offer to help her. Shlepping the book everywhere so that Sherlock can see and hear the people she's questioning, she follows a trail to the past in the hope of explaining the present. Whether Holmes fans are amused or appalled, the great detective adds spice to an otherwise ordinary mystery. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
Librarian Josie Way, director of the local public library housed in an old mansion in Wilfred, Oregon, is a witch just beginning to learn to use her powers. A glitch in her magic allows Helen Garlington to see a game show in which she insists one of the contestants, Bruno Gates, is the long-lost husband who left her years ago. Bruno travels to Oregon to prove to Helen he isn't her husband, but then Josie finds Bruno dead in a field. Helen begs Josie to find Bruno's killer, and she agrees, assisted by a six-inch-tall Sherlock Holmes that her affinity with books conjures up from an illustrated work of Arthur Conan Doyle stories. Complicating matters, Josie is afraid to tell Sam, her sheriff's deputy boyfriend, who craves normalcy after a tumultuous former relationship, that she is a witch. Multiple story lines, plot twists, humor, quirky characters, and a lovingly described library setting where books whisper to Josie to assist her in her investigations add up to a satisfying, magical, cozy mystery in the Witch Way Librarian series (after Witch upon a Star, 2023).
