ARC Review: The Curious Affair of the Witch of Wayside Cross by Lisa Tuttle

Events had just been drawn to a close in the first book in this series, The Somnambulist and the Psychic Thief, when Jesperson and Lane get their second case literally fall dead at their door step…all with accusations of witchcraft ringing in the ears of our two detectives. After being hired by the victim’s brother Mr Jesperson and Miss Lane start to investigate the very mysterious death that fell at their feet.

I finished the first book in this series with mixed feelings. I liked some aspects of it, whilst I didn’t like others. However, the ending, a man literally dying in their hall way and accusing Miss Lane of being a witch, had me quickly reaching for the next book. I left The Curious Affair of the Witch at Wayside Cross with no mixed feelings. I really liked it. It was a lot of fun, Tuttle mixes detective work with a bit of the occult and mixes it all up to give you an interesting mystery to delve into.

I have mixed feelings about the first book due to the head scratching jumps of logic and happy coincidences, this book had much less of this and I thought it worked a lot better for that reason. Instead we are introduced to a village load of suspects, the priest, the witch, the occult leader… and left to untangle the web that holds them all together. One thing that didn’t change was that it was written from Miss Lane’s POV, which, I really liked, through her language and attitudes it gives a very clear picture of the time period in which this book is set.

Although I wasn’t sure about the first book, I definitely enjoyed this one, it wasn’t perfect, but it was engaging and I did enjoy the story. If you are after a good historical mystery series which has a hint of magic about it, then you definitely need to give this book a try.