When his partner is discovered in a frozen alley with eight bullets in his chest, Niagara Falls Police Detective Roger Frey swears vengeance. But Detective Chief Woodward has forbidden him or anyone else on the detective squad to work the case. Emlyn Goode knows Roger will disobey his boss, which will cost him his job and his freedom. Because she cares for him more than she'll admit, she needs to stop him. Desperate, she can think of but one way. Emlyn recently learned she's a direct descendant of a woman hanged as a witch in 1692. She has a book filled with arcane recipes and chants passed...

In The Magic of Murder, Susan Lynn Solomon let readers laugh at the antics of an albino cat and a witch. Now, in nine short tales she takes a serious look at relationships and their impact on characters who confront their pasts. A young soldier returns, changed by his war. A young British girl faces the people of her town after parental abuse. An older man who as a teenager fled his hometown, returns when his childhood girlfriend begs a favor. A radical of the '70s leaves the cemetery after her mother's funeral, searching for where her life will lead. In these stories and five others, Solomon...

When Emlyn Goode's mother returns to Niagara Falls for a high school reunion, so does murder. During the reunion, a woman's body is found in the ladies room. Is this killing connected to one that occurred 40 years before in the woods below the town of Lewiston? Harry Woodward, a young police officer working his first murder case suspected Emlyn's mother of the crime, although there wasn't enough evidence to arrest her. Home from a year-long leave, Harry-now the Niagara Falls Chief of Detectives-together with Emlyn's friend, Detective Roger Frey, investigates the latest killing. Distraught...