A Witch Steps into My Office

A Noir Urban Fantasy Novel (Alexander Southerland, P.I. Book 2)

Fiction - Fantasy - Urban
341 Pages
Reviewed on 09/16/2020
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Author Biography

My parents raised me right. Any mistakes I made were my own. Hopefully, I learned from them.

I earned a doctorate in medieval European history at the University of California Santa Barbara. Go Gauchos! I taught world history at a couple of colleges before settling into a private college prep high school in Monterey. After I retired, I began to write an urban fantasy series featuring hardboiled private eye Alexander Southerland as he cruises through the mean streets of Yerba City and interacts with trolls, femme fatales, shape-shifters, witches, and corrupt city officials.

I am happily married to my wife, Rita. The two of us can be found most days pounding the pavement in our running shoes. Rita listens to all of my ideas and reads all of my work. Her advice is beyond value. In return, I make her coffee. It's a pretty sweet deal. We have a cat named Cinderella who is happy to stay indoors. She demands that we tell her how pretty she is.

    Book Review

Reviewed by Susan Sewell for Readers' Favorite

After a prospective client announces that she has killed someone who isn't dead yet, a private eye strives to stop the killer before more people die horrifying deaths in A Witch Steps Into My Office: A Noir Urban Fantasy Novel (Alexander Southerland P.I. Book 2) by Douglas Lumsden. Alexander Southerland is a private investigator who attracts unusual clients with peculiar problems they want him to fix, and this day is no different. When a powerful witch confesses to the murder of a man who will die soon, she hires Alex to find the person who compelled her to kill him, and things get sticky. Uncertain about accepting the case, Alex attempts to rescue the doomed man and is on the scene when the victim meets his end. Now the police consider Alex a person of interest, and the actual killer has Alex in his sights. With more people dying and powerful magic behind their murders, Alex combines his investigative talent with a savvy police detective and a cunning were-rat to identify and immobilize the killer. Can Alex succeed in exposing the culprit? Or will he be the next sacrifice?

A Witch Steps Into My Office by Douglas Lumsden is a brilliantly written, thrilling novel based on the pre-Colombian culture of Mexico and Central America. It is an enjoyable story with an engaging plot, exciting action-filled scenes, and a witty protagonist. With striking imagery and captivating and unique characters, the story captures the imagination from the first sentence and evolves to an astounding conclusion. I fell hard for Yerba City and its outlandish inhabitants, and I am anxiously waiting for Alex to return in future exploits. I recommend this sensational novel to everyone who loves an action-packed whodunit with a fantastical twist. I genuinely appreciated the pronunciation guide at the beginning and the Appendix at the end of the book; their addition enhanced the experience. Because of the strong language interspersed within the dialogue, the story is more suited for readers over the age of thirteen.