Final Exam (A Witch City Mystery)
Cozy Mystery
8th in Series
Kensington (February 26, 2019)
Mass Market Paperback: 368 pages

Synopsis

A cold case update in Salem, Massachusetts . . .

Life at the house on Winter Street is abuzz with preparations for Aunt Ibby’s 45th high school reunion, and Lee Barrett is happy to pitch in, tracking down addresses and licking envelopes. But as a field reporter for Salem’s WICH-TV, her priority is to be on top of the town’s latest news before anyone else.

When the local police dredge up a vintage sports car containing human remains, Lee is thrilled to be the first reporter on the scene. Once she learns the car is connected to the cold case her boyfriend Pete happens to be working on, her powers of investigation are quickly alerted. But it’s her Aunt Ibby’s emotional reaction to Lee’s TV report that puts her on the case. With the help of O’Ryan, her psychic feline sidekick, she’ll have to unravel a tangled past of secrets and promises to stop a killer from making history again . . .

Guest Post

All of the Witch City Mysteries are set in—where else?–the famous Witch City itself, Salem Massachusetts. That magical city also happens to be my birthplace, and as the publicity folks at Kensington Publishing were delighted to learn, I was born there one dark and stormy Halloween eve!

I’m so glad I chose Salem for my background locale. Of course, it helps that I know my way around there pretty well, but mostly I’m finding that Salem’s rich history is a never-ending source of inspiration for plot twists and intriguing details for my characters to discover.

Many of the places I mention in the books are real. I actual streets and buildings as much as possible. Even the house on Winter Street where my heroine Lee Barrett and her tech-savvy librarian Aunt Ibby live is based on a real house. I enjoy sending Lee and her detective boyfriend Pete Mondello to restaurants Salem people recognize like Dube’s or Bill and Bob’s or Gulu-Gulu.  The couple often visits the Salem Willows Park or take long walks on Deveraux Beach in nearby Marblehead. Some of the places are made up, of course. Lee is a field reporter at WICH-TV. There is no such station—but shouldn’t there be?

Sometimes I rearrange things to suit my storyline. In Final Exam, I needed some deep old granite pits so I put some a lot closer to Salem than actually exist there. In the next book in the series, Late Checkout, I completely rearranged the interior of Salem’s main library. One of the joys of writing fiction is the ability to move things around in time and space.

Every cozy mystery heroine needs a dependable “side-kick.” Lee’s best friend is a practicing witch I named River North. (River’s name is a little “in-joke” for Salem readers. The North River flows through Salem!) River is also a Tarot Reader with her own show and the beautiful Tarot cards often provide clues for Lee to interpret—usually with the help of her wise (and maybe psychic) cat, O’Ryan.

Though I live in Florida, my husband Dan and I try to visit Salem at least once a year—preferably when the weather is pleasant. However, I still often use Google Earth to find my way around the city so that I won’t send Lee in her blue Corvette convertible up any one-way streets the wrong way.

I hope my readers will enjoy a fictional visit to my magical city along with a good mystery. Perhaps you’ll even want to visit there someday for real!

About the Author

Carol J. Perry knew as a child that she wanted to be a writer. A voracious reader, whose list for Santa consisted mostly of book titles, she never lost sight of that goal. While living in Florida, Carol was on assignment for Southern Travel Magazine, preparing an article on the world’s largest sand castle which was being built near her home. That combination of events inspired her first young adult novel, Sand Castle Summer. That book was soon followed by half a dozen more.

Carol has always been an avid reader of mysteries. Her debut mystery novel is set in Salem and involves O’Ryan, a most mysterious cat, several witches and some strange Halloween happenings. Appropriately enough, this Salem-born author celebrates her birthday on Halloween Eve! Carol and her husband Dan live in the Tampa Bay area of Florida with two cats and a Black Lab.

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