23 February 2023.
ISBN: 978-1-99055010-2(PB)
The four women of the WISE Enquiry Agency have settled happily in the Welsh village of Anwen-by-Wye. The eldest of the group, Mavis, is contented living with Althea, the Dowager Duchess of Chellingworth, and knows that her companionship is truly valued. Carol has everything she has longed for, living with her husband, David and small son, Albert, the baby they had spent years trying for when they lived in London. After several disastrous relationships, Annie is gloriously happy in her little cottage with her adorable puppy, Gertie, and in love with Tudor, the landlord of the local pub. The youngest of the WISE women, Christine, has just become engaged to the successful and charming businessman, Alexander Bright, she loves him, but she is feeling increasingly stressed by her parents’ grandiose plans for the wedding ceremony. Also suffering from parental interference are Henry and Stephanie Twyst, the Duke and Duchess of Chellingworth, the local landowners who have provided the WISE women with affordable housing and office space. Henry had not expected to inherit the title and was happily pursuing his passion of being an artist until his elder half-brother died. Henry is a conscientious but diffident lord of the manor. He is much happier since his marriage to his sensible, supportive wife and is overwhelmed by his love and feelings of responsibility for his three-week-old son and heir. Unfortunately, his mother and parents-in-law are trying to take over all the arrangements, including naming the baby and deciding the details of his christening.
The WISE women are offered two paying cases. One is a run of the mill case from a local solicitor whose client, Mark Morgan, is being sued by a builder who claims he is unable to work because of a leg injury caused by Morgan while he was building a wall on his premises. Morgan is furious and wants the WISE Enquiry Agency to prove that the builder is lying when he claims that he has not recovered. Annie names this The Case of the Invalid Invalid.
A far more unusual case is The Case of the Cursed Cottage. Gemma Thomas inherited Sea View Cottage in Gower from her uncle and she and her husband renovated it and turned it into a ‘smart’ cottage in order to let it as a holiday cottage. Gemma’s uncle had died from carbon monoxide poisoning in the cottage, which she had not considered as sinister until other accidents occurred. Most of these accidents were trivial or moderately serious but one was fatal, involving the death of a man staying in the cottage when his electric bicycle crashed outside the cottage. Gemma is convinced that the cottage has been cursed by two women who used to live there, whom Gemma believes were witches, who focus their malignant evil on men rather than women. She would like to sell the cottage but will not do so while it is dangerous. None of the women detectives believe Sea View Cottage is cursed but Annie and Christine agree to go to stay in the cottage to investigate. They soon realise that something strange and potentially dangerous is going on.
Carol’s computer skills are needed to investigate both cases and she is unwilling to leave her infant son for long periods of time, so Mavis has to take on watching the builder in order to establish whether he really is disabled or not. This is a task that proves unexpectedly stressful, and Mavis is extremely unhappy when the Dowager Duchess decides to interfere.
Despite her brilliance discovering data online, Carol has always been the quietest member of the team, and because of her baby she is also the most domestic and home-based. As well as her online work supporting the other members of the team on their cases, Carol takes on an unpaid case for the community of Anwen-by-Wye when an annoying but fundamentally decent village woman is infected after a manicure and pedicure at a posh and expensive local spa. Soon Carol establishes that there is more going on than an individual incident of carelessness. As she delves deeper, she discovers an unexpected link to another case and her mastery of data analysis and eye for discovering patterns also helps to solve the third. All of Carol’s colleagues agree that she is the key player whose skills play a significant role in solving all their current cases.
The
Case of the Cursed Cottage is the seventh in the series featuring the women of
the WISE Enquiry Agency and the inhabitants of Anwen-by-Wye. It is a series
that gets stronger with every book. The storylines of the three cases are well
constructed and interesting and the characters are all warmly engaging and grow
all the time in confidence and happiness. The entire village, including the
inhabitants of Chellingworth Hall, form a kind and supportive community. The
Case of the Cursed Cottage is a delightful page turner, which I recommend.
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Reviewer:
Carol Westron
Cathy Ace was born and raised in Swansea, South Wales. With a successful career in marketing having given her the chance to write training courses and textbooks, Cathy has now finally turned her attention to her real passion: crime fiction. Her short stories have appeared in multiple anthologies. Two of her works, Dear George and Domestic Violence, have also been produced by Jarvis & Ayres Productions as ‘Afternoon Reading’ broadcasts for BBC Radio 4. Cathy now writes two series of traditional mysteries: The Cait Morgan Mysteries (TouchWood Editions) and The WISE Enquiries Agency Mysteries (Severn House Publishers)
https://promotingcrime.blogspot.co.uk/2017/11/carol-westron.html www.carolwestron.com
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To read a review of Carol latest book
The Curse of the Concrete Griffin
click
on the title
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