10 January 2024.
ISBN: 978-1-83526329-7 (PB)
Ellie
McEwan, owner of a florist shop, is driving northbound on the A3 when at Wisley
a young man dashes out in front of her. Travelling at seventy miles as hour she
has no chance to avoid the lad, hits him and smashes into the crash barrier.
Ellie is badly hurt and taken to hospital where she undergoes a successful
operation – she had a depressed piece of bone in her brain.
An old friend of hers, Carole Meyer organises a visitor rota. She is actually a clairvoyant and on reading her Tarot cards learns that Ellie will have the ability to develop a certain power, it leaves her feeling uneasy. Her readings are proved true for when Ellie regains consciousness, she sees bright lights surrounding everyone she encounters. She is assured there is nothing wrong with her eyesight or brain.
Together with Professor Michael Seale, a specialist on auric sight, Carole slowly teaches Ellie how to control the bright auras she sees and even be able to use the “gift”.
Ellie realises how her new found ability can be of use when she sees “bad colours” coming off of a new born baby. She tells a nurse she knows well, and a doctor operates, saving the baby’s life.
Meanwhile Detective Chief Inspector Bob Foreman and his team are investigating the murders of two women. Their hands have been crushed and mutilated and the only connection between them is that they were both skilled professionals. The police have no real leads and now a key witness has gone missing.
Ellie’s skills come to the attention of Bob Foreman and when there is a third murder, exactly the same as the others, he reluctantly turns to her for help.
Ellie comes out of hospital and lives with Carole while recovering fully. Michael also stays there to help Ellie develop her new found skills. Carole is not happy about Foreman’s intended involvement of Ellie in the murder investigations and has an extremely upsetting vision but keeps quiet about it. However, Ellie seems set on helping in any way especially when a woman who is thought to have seen the murderer, goes missing.
Worryingly, just as Carole feared, Ellie now puts herself in extreme danger. Will she survive unscathed?
I do enjoy Joy Ellis’s books and found An Aura of Mystery dealt with a fascinating subject. All police forces could benefit from someone like Ellie!
Highly recommended for readers interested in a
thriller dealing with something different.
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Reviewer: Tricia Chappell
Joy Ellis was born in Kent but spent most of her working life in London and Surrey. She was an apprentice florist to Constance Spry Ltd, a prestigious Mayfair shop that throughout the Sixties and Seventies teemed with both royalty and ‘real’ celebrities. She swore that one day she would have a shop of her own. It took until the early Eighties, but she did it. Sadly the recession wiped it out, and she embarked on a series of weird and wonderful jobs; the last one being a bookshop manager Joy now lives in a village in the Lincolnshire Fens with her partner, Jacqueline. She had been writing mysteries for years but never had the time to take it seriously. Now as her partner is a highly decorated retired police officer; her choice of genre was suddenly clear. She has set her crime thrillers in the misty fens.
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