Monday, July 16, 2012

Bruja Brouhaha-Rochelle Staab

Bruja Brouhaha


Rochelle Staab

Berkley, Aug 7 2012, $7.99

ISBN: 9780425251492



In the Bay area, psychologist Liz Cooper is is normally and rational pragmatic individual; while Professor Nick Garfield studies the occult. Logically this is not a pair that belong together; however opposites attract in love.



The couple attends the sixtieth wedding anniversary celebration of Santeria practitioners Paco and Lucia Rojas, who own Botanica Rojas where they grow herbs for their spells. In the middle of the gala, Paco goes to answer the downstairs doorbell. Shots are fired leaving Paco and a gangbanger dead. Santeria Priestess Lucia falls apart and holds good citizens culpable for Paco’s murder for enable gangs to thrive. She places a hex in the neighbors which angers them as they blame her for things going wrong dubbing her the bruja witch. Liz and Nick seek the killer so that Lucia can have some peace of mind before a “hexed” neighbor comes after the elderly grieving woman.



The second Mind for Murder Mystery (see Who Do, Voodoo?) enables readers to believe in the magic of the Santeria hex as things suddenly go wrong just after Lucia cast her Bruja Brouhaha on the neighborhood. Liz and Nick may be the oddest couple since Oscar and Felix, but their attraction is strong even though she prefers going slow having been burned by her ex and he wants to marry yesterday. Their investigation is light but entertaining as Rochelle Staab provides an enjoyable whodunit.



Harriet Klausner



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