Familiar Motives: A Witch’s Cat Mystery
By Delia James
Berkley
October 3, 2017

Review by Cynthia Chow

It makes sense that in a town full of witches, there would be a veterinarian in Portsmouth who specializes in familiars. Only recently aware of her magical heritage herself, Annabelle Amelia Blessingsound Britton makes an appointment to take her disappearing (literally, at times) cat familiar for a routine checkup. Alistair receives a clean bill of health, but the same won’t soon be said for Dr. Ramona Forsythe. During a party to at the Midnight Reads bookstore to celebrate Anna’s new adult coloring book, Alistair has the most alarming reaction and draws her out to Ramona’s apartment and the corpse underneath her balcony.

Ramona had been boarding Ruby, the celebrity cat food spokesfeline known Attitude Cat, but after Ramona death Ruby goes missing as well. So the question becomes who was the target, the valuable cat or the veterinarian who may have gotten in the catnappers way? Anna had witnessed an angry confrontation between Ruby’s owner Kristen Summers and Cheryl Bell, a former roommate now suing for cat ownership and profits. Able to pick up “Vibes” of emotions resonating within buildings, Anna detects a hefty amount of anger, fear, and greed emanating from Ramona’s apartment. Anna and Alistair weren’t alone in sensing a disturbance in the force, as also alerted was fellow practicing witch and New Hampshire police officer, Kenisha Freeman. The knowledge that someone may have used magic to break down Ramona’s protection wards has coven leader Julia Parris leading them into action, despite Kenisha’s advice to restrain their nosy tendencies. Under the guise of being the Portsmouth area Ladies Book Group and Bonfire Appreciation Society, Anna and her coven begin a literal witch hunt, with witches doing the actual hunting.

This continues to be an innovative mystery series that interweaves magical lore into a practical and complicated plot. Past rivalries, not to mention recent tragic incidents, influence the witches of Portsmouth, which uniquely leads to novice Anna having perhaps the most unbiased view in the investigation. She has made the admirable decision to come out of the broomcloset to reveal her status to the rest of her family at Thanksgiving, a move guaranteed to cause strife at the dinner table. The “mundane” aspects of the investigation are equally enthralling, especially when their magical interference hampers legal procedures and the train of evidence. Moral dilemmas, a very complicated mystery, and Anna’s struggle to balance her personal, business, and new magical life, are expertly written into a novel that will have readers anticipating Anna’s future with her new witch family.