The Fifth Petal by Brunonia Barry

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The Fifth Petal by Brunonia Barry is, of a sort, a sequel to her book The Lace Reader. they take place in the same town of Salem, and offer the same characters. 

The Fifth Petal starts off by telling of a murder in Salem in 1989 on Halloween night. Three beautiful women were brutally murdered in what would be known as the Goddess Murders. Only two witnesses really know what happened. One was a little girl who's mother was one of the victims, and the other is an older woman who claims the murders were committed by a screaming banshee.

Years later, the town still tells the story of the unsolved murders every Halloween, which draws in tourists. Then comes another murder. A young punk in town is murdered and witnesses are pointing the finger at the same woman who was accused, but never convicted,  of the Goddess Murders, and she has the exact same story she had the first time around. 

Now detective Rafferty is cased with trying to find out what really happened and he isn't alone. He is aided by Callie, the little girl (now grown) who's mother was murdered 25 years earlier in the Goddess Murders. Callie has premonitions and is soon drawn to someone who has ties to her mother's death and the past events. As the story unravels you discover the tie between Salem's current murder and it's dark past stemming from the original Salem witch trials. 

The book started off kind of slow to me, but I usually do go for books with mystery/thriller/horror themes to them so of course I was going to stick it out for a book that is about the Salem witches. I liked the story, and it kept me guessing the entire time. There is no tie to the first book except for the characters and the setting, so you could jump right into this one without having to read the first one. That appealed to me because I hate picking up a book and not realizing until halfway into it that it's actually the second book in a series. 

I wanted to like this book more than I did, but this is one of those books that ends up being a "one and done" read for me. Meaning that I don't see myself revisiting this book at all. 

Book was provided for purpose of review from Blogging for Books