Genre: Mystery
Hardcover; Trade Paperback; Digital Book
ISBN #: 9781635112955; 9781635112923
Henery Press
268 Pages
$31.95; $15.95; $$4.99 Amazon
January 30, 2018
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Creepy munchkins. A mysterious phantom. And a real Wicked Witch. Are you ready for it? Actress and part-time PI Ivy Meadows has been hired to uncover the cause of the creepy accidents that plague the roadshow The Wizard: A Space OZpera and find out who dropped a chandelier on the Wicked Witch of the East. Was it the ghost who haunts the Grand Phoenican Theatre? A "wicked witch" in the cast? Or is it someone - or something - more sinister? It's Ivy's most personal case so far. Her best friend Candy, who's touring with the show, is caught in a downward spiral of self-destruction, and in is more danger than she knows. To save her friend and the show, Ivy must answer even tougher questions. Do spirits really exist? What is real beauty? What does friendship mean? Ivy needs to learn the answers, and fast - before Candy reaches the point of no return.
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Ivy Meadows is an actress and part-time PI in Phoenix, Arizona. One day she receives a call from her best friend Candy, who has moved to California to pursue her acting career. It seems she's in Phoenix touring with a roadshow of The Wizard: A Space Ozpera - a sort of The Wizard of Oz in outer space. While Ivy is excited that she's going to see Candy again, she's totally floored when she finally does.
Candy isn't the same voluptuous woman she parted with: she's now razor thin to the point of emaciation, with dingy hair and grey teeth. In fact, it pretty much looks like Candy is doing some sort of drug and Ivy is sure she's killing herself. But she won't talk about it, and she doesn't want to spend a lot of time with Ivy.
When Ivy visits the theater to watch rehearsal, she encounters a most unpleasant woman - Babette, who runs a reality show that 'discovers' new talent, and she thinks nothing of destroying others' dreams nor humiliating them in public. There's also someone else in the theater, but unseen: the ghost of a broken-hearted actress who killed herself after a tragic love, the Lady in White. She's been disrupting rehearsal, causing accidents, and while not everyone believes in her, enough do that the accidents are causing problems with the play. And Babette is making the most of it, using the media to tell everyone how the ghost is targeting her and trying to kill her.
But it's not until after a particular incident when Candy disappears that Ivy begins to seriously worry about her friend and if something's happened to her. Surely it couldn't be a real ghost causing all these problems? What if it's something - or someone - more sinister, and why would they want Candy out of the way? But it's not until she receives a phone call from Arrestadt Giry - the director and Candy's boyfriend - wanting to hire her to locate her missing friend that she begins to worry in earnest. Then, when another tragedy befalls production and someone is murdered, Ivy is in a race against time to find and save Candy - but is it from an unseen force or herself?
I have to tell you that I absolutely love the Ivy Meadows mysteries. They're smart, funny, suspenseful, and intelligently written. Ivy is no flaky miss who stumbles around in investigations. While she sometimes gets a slow start, she's on the ball: she asks questions, has a curious nature that propels her along, and doesn't walk head on into iffy situations (although she does sometimes go places I probably never would - like cobwebbed hallways). She's sharp and cute, and even though she sometimes has a lapse of judgment where her personal life is concerned, her heart is always in the right place.
In this book, when Ivy goes to see Candy perform in The Wizard, she doesn't have a clue that things are about to change - not just Candy's physical and mental changes, but that her own life will change. She winds up as a temporary cast member (which could lead to a permanent job) who's taken over Candy's role when she disappears. While everyone is telling her Candy left on purpose Ivy's gut is telling her something else. (As a side note, you can still get Moon Pies where I live - and in many different flavors).
It doesn't help that she develops a cold which can threaten her performances; her brother Cody has a secret that worries her - and she's keeping one from her boyfriend Matt; and her Uncle Bob is out of town on a romantic rendezvous with his girlfriend, so she's on her own, unless you count on the help of an unseen and possibly unworldly spirit.
I found the book to start a little slow, but once it picked up it was quite intriguing and kept me reading in one sitting. Ivy is not only an extremely likable person, she surrounds herself with others who are also likable but quirky. I think this is what makes the series so much fun to read. Everyone has a little bit of strangeness in them, and it makes them human somehow.
When we finally come to the end and the killer is discovered it is put together extremely well, believable and satisfying. Ms. Brown has written another suspenseful tale full of humor and enough twists and turns to keep one interested throughout. This is the fifth book in the series but can be read as a stand alone, and I look forward to the next in the series. Highly recommended.
https://www.amazon.com/Phantom-Oz-Ivy-Meadows-Mystery/dp/1635112923/
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2269970434
More on Cindy Brown's Books: https://www.fantasticfiction.com/b/cindy-brown/
Thanks for the great review! So glad you like Ivy:)
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