WHERE DEMONS HIDE, or really "don't hide well enough to get away with it"

WHERE DEMONS HIDE (Rebecca Connolly #4)
DOUGLAS SKELTON
Arcade CrimeWise
$27.99 hardcover, available now

Rating: 4.5* of five

The Publisher Says: Something scared Nuala Flaherty to death. When her body is found in the centre of a pentagram on a lonely moor, Rebecca is determined to find out what. Was she killed by supernatural means, or is there a more down-to-earth explanation?

Rebecca’s investigation leads her to a mysterious cult and local drug dealings. But what she doesn’t know is that crime matriarch Mo Burke still has her in her crosshairs. Mo wants payback for the death of her son, and after one failed attempt to hurt Rebecca, she is upping the ante. And this time, it could be lethal.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: Back to Stoirm Island go we all as Rebecca gets drawn into another strange, outlandish murder's resolution. The reason I like these stories is that they offer such weird ways for people to die...with very down-to-Earth explanations that fit consensus reality down to the ground. This being how I experience the world...whatever's got weirdness wrapped around it is being obfuscated by someone for some reason...I'm down for another trip.

Nuala's death was so OTT that the author's hand seemed tipped too far from the start. As her sad little life's ending proves, some people just have no luck in this world. The Children of the Dell are clearly a cult, and Nuala should've kept away. Cults are dangerous. Always. "Don't get near them" is the only advice you need about dealing with cults. Run away if they come for you, and never get into it with cultists, or Trouble will follow. This equally applies to Rebecca, of course; the difference is, she's responsible for ending the profitable cult-like existence of Mo Burke's family's drug-dealing cult of loyalties fiercely held. Not all religions need the supernatural to exist powerfully in their followers' hearts.

Rebacca, understandably, isn't going back to Stoirm to look into stuff...Chaz and Alan getting married there puts them into position to be her eyes and ears. These two are a delight! Rebecca's weird, unsettling past on Stoirm isn't going to keep these boys from doing the needed work for her; it's not going to cow them into inactivity, despite the spooky overtones to so many things; it's not going to prevent them from being their fun, funny, in-love selves as they help their friend fix the broken thread of a taken life in the world's tapestry.

No matter that there are explantions for what happened to Nuala, and what's behind the scene set to distract from her death; Author Skelton makes Rebecca and her catspaws work for every clue and struggle to make sense of the remorselessness of greed and jealousy that propel narcissists to act with cruelty and finality. Revenge? They think it's Justice. Being Right is an addiction to the narcissistic people of the world. Rebecca, and Elspeth, like being right for better reasons: Resolving evil deeds done by powerful and power-hungry narcissists. The two of them, having suffered at those hands they now do their best to tie up in handcuffs, pursue the benign factual-correctness face of Being Right. Theire news-reporting business is dedicated to it. This is an agreeable dream to me, so I suspend my disbelief that independent news-gatherers in Inverness, Scotland, could do what they do without being squashed under lawsuits and calumnies and threats to their safety.

Fiction is a balm and a blessing for letting me have these fantasies of Ma'at being served so well. Douglas Skelton's talents for dialogue and character creation are, as expected, well used and effective throughout the read. The plot isn't without its issues. At times, Rebecca doesn't see things I've come to think she should until past the time they're obvious. This is usually handwaved away but it happens. Chaz and Alan are, as mentioned, very sweet togeher if just a touch overplayed. I don't mean as a gay couple...I mean as Rebecca's sleuths, at times, they seem to be taking their roles flippantly and playing up how cute they are. These are quibbles, not issues; the fact is that reasonable readers can and will read the same words I did and not see what I saw, so I'm not in any way downgrading the story.

What, as always with Author Skelton's stories, happens is clearly a result of Rebecca's, and Elspeth's, moral values: No matter what, who, or where they are, victimizers must be stopped and brought to punishment for their wrongdoing. Mystery series are always in service of ma'at. The Egyptian personification of Justice and balance and harmony and order and even law is the one whose remit includes protecting and aiding this kind of journalist/sleuth with a powerful moral compass. It makes the genre one I resonate with on a bone-deep level. Rebecca, and all the people she surrounds herself with, resonate to Justice's gonging vibrations. I love the way Author Skelton uses, sometimes almost too much and too often, the hints of something from the Beyond being on Rebecca's side. I believe there is a Rightess in the world that is tipped out of balance when someone is victimized. Finding, in Rebecca and her crew, others who have that feeling too makes these reads deeply satisfying.

This outing's no exception. The ending is very satisfying, and will leave my fellow series-loving readers happily anticipating more from Douglas Skelton.