Book 31, 2018

Cloaked in Malice by Annette Blair

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



Between last night and today, I knocked back Cloaked in Malice, which is the 5th book in author Annette Blair's "Vintage Magic" mystery series, featuring vintage clothing afficianado Maddie Cutler, who can psychically read clothing.

When a lovely young woman comes to Maddie's shop, dressed in vintage and searching for clues to her past, Maddie is eager to help her. That help comes at a price, when Maddie inadvertently reads a child's cloak that woman has with her, giving Maddie a vision of murder and kidnapping. There's also the uncanny resemblance between the stranger, Paisley, and Maddie's elderly friend, Dolly Sweet. After Dolly goes AWOL, Maddie's boyfriend, FBI agent Nick, gets involved as well. Soon, they are exploring the small island where Paisley grew up and was a virtual prisoner until her caretakers passed, giving her the opportunity to flag down a boat and escape the island. An old photo is what led her to Mystick Falls and Maddie's shop, but now Maddie isn't sure she can trust Paisley. Is she the "little girl lost" she claims to be, or is she part of an organized crime family or an undercover operative? All of Maddie's visions seem to be of mayhem and murder, and Paisley is definitely at the heart of it all.

This story was quite a departure from earlier ones in the series, in that the crime/murder was decades old instead of recent. There was no body for Maddie to stumble across, and no friend or family member whose name needed to be cleared. The story was interesting, but it was sort of all over the place, and it was downright confusing at times. Maddie did a lot of reading in this one, which I liked, even though it took a lot out of her to do so.

Favorite line: I had to let go of this determination of mine to blame the mob when it could have been...Smurfs.

Not my favorite in this series, even though the narrative zipped along. Giving this one a rating of 4 stars:

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