Snow & Winter #5
Antique dealer Sebastian Snow and Homicide detective Calvin Winter have been happily married for a year and a half. In that time, there’s been nary a mystery in sight, and for a recovering sleuth like Sebastian, an uneventful life is exactly what he needs.
That is, until Calvin’s lieutenant enters the Emporium and demands insight on a bizarre object known as a spiritoscope, hailing from the early days of the Spiritualism movement. Sebastian’s extensive knowledge of Victorian curiosities leads him to consulting for the NYPD—putting him at odds with his husband. And as the bodies begin to stack up, so do the seemingly dead-end clues, which if Sebastian can’t make sense of, might result in a whole lot more death.
Mystery, murder, and marriage… Sebastian’s back.
Snow and Winter are back!
Sebastian and Calvin never get old, I will never tire of their journey. CS Poe has done it again with her incredibly well balanced blend of mystery, romance, danger, and humor. It's that blend that made me stop briefly a few chapters from the end of The Mystery of the Spirits when I realized just how much this couple reminds me of Nick and Nora Charles, Dashiell Hammett's mystery solving duo of The Thin Man and appreciate the author's brilliance of doing so before continuing on.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying the author copied the "formula", Snow and Winter are very much their own characters with their own brand of pros and cons, strengths and weaknesses, but that blend I mentioned is what drives the chemistry between them and that chemistry is what reminds me of Nick and Nora. Nick's a "retired" detective and she's his rich wife who is intrigued by mystery and wants to help. Okay, so Calvin is definitely not retired and Seb is definitely not rich but very much finds himself sucked into the investigations(sometimes by choice and sometimes by fate). That pull, that driving force is what makes them so amazing, so likeable, so unique and yet the couple next door all at the same time. So when I say they are very Nick and Nora, I'm not comparing the fictional couples but complimenting the author for bringing to life an unforgettable couple full of sass and snuggle.
Now, back to The Mystery of the Spirits. I'm so not giving anything away because everything, and I do mean EVERYTHING plays a factor, has a role in this case. I will say that I was questioning the who and why until about a page before the reveal. Even when it came to me I still found myself going "Is it really ???" and keeping the reader guessing that close to the reveal is everything I want in a who done it?. So kudos to CS Poe for keeping my brain percolating.
I think one of the things that really grabs my attention with the author's Snow and Winter series is the antiques, the element of history added to a very contemporary mystery. I'm not really up on antiques but I am a history lover and a lover of unknown tidbits that most history teachers/professors gloss over or neglect all together because in my opinion its the minute details that make history interesting. Some might call them "useless facts" but for me they are very much useful and 200% intriguing. So yet another kudos to CS Poe for her attention to detail and her love of history, or the very least her respect for all things in the past.
You can never go wrong with Snow and Winter and whether she brings more cases to Seb's Emporium in the future, time will tell but I know I'll be revisiting their journeys, their cases, their love story for years to come.
One last note: if you are wondering about reading order, asking if you can start with Spirits or start a the beginning with Nevermore? My answer: start with Nevermore. I'm a series-read-in-order kind of gal so it's obvious to start at the beginning for me. Will you be lost if you don't start with number 1? No, the author gives us any "needed" past info to keep you in the loop but Calvin and Sebastian meet in Nevermore so it is only natural to start there and experience all the ups and downs, highs and lows, of their journey as it happened. However you want to tackle it, you won't be sorry because Snow and Winter are a brilliant, winning duo that will make you smile. What more can a reader ask for?
A police lieutenant walks into Snow’s Antique Emporium—which was not the setup to a bad joke, just how my Wednesday began.
The bell over the front door dinged and a gravelly voice snapped, “Where’s that Sebastian Snow?”
“Boss,” Max called without missing a beat. “You’ve got a customer.”
I stepped out of the office. Max didn’t look up from where he was dusting displays on the showroom floor, merely jutted a thumb in the direction of the door.
“Yeah, thanks, I hear just fine.” I took the steps down from the raised counter, wove around glass cases of gizmos and gadgets, and sidestepped larger, more eclectic odds and ends from a century long since passed. When I got close enough that the man came into focus, I nearly tripped over myself as I put on the brakes. “Oh. Hi.”
Calvin’s supervisor, and now-lieutenant after a promotion earlier that year, Ronald Ferguson, glowered at me from the threshold. He didn’t much like me, even blamed me for the Victorian-themed murder mysteries that’d befallen his Homicide Squad in the past, only because I’d gotten tangled up in one or two or four of them. I’d also married his best detective a year and a half ago, after the Bones case had been put to rest, and that’d really twisted Ferguson’s balls. I mean, it’s not like I’d purposefully gone out of my way to outsmart the entirety of the NYPD and steal Ferguson’s spotlight when Dr. Asquith had finally been apprehended. I’d simply had the bigger incentive for solving the case. Calvin might have been Ferguson’s first-grade, golden-goose detective, but he was my husband.
And love makes a guy do crazy things.
Anyway. Let bygones be bygones or whatever. Our relationship since me and Calvin tied the knot wasn’t exactly cordial, and I didn’t expect that to change. The few times we’d crossed paths, I’d say hello, Ferguson would grunt, and then we’d go our separate ways. So the fact that this man, with his permanent scowl, big arms, bigger chest, and classic Cop ’Stache, had willingly sought me out at… nine o’clock in the morning… was concerning.
“Is something wrong?” I asked, fiddling with the rolled-back cuffs of my shirtsleeves. “Is Calvin—?”
Ferguson tsked under his breath and shoved the cardboard box he’d been holding under one arm against my chest.
I scrambled to catch it and awkwardly pushed my glasses back up my nose.
Max had joined me by that point. He brushed the unsecured flaps of the box with his duster, then said to Ferguson, “Morning.”
“He bites,” I muttered in warning.
Max, who stood taller than me and still had that wiry build of a twentysomething guy who can eat absolutely anything and not gain an ounce, was using my shoulder as an armrest. “Max Ridley,” he said next, motioning to himself with the duster. “In case you wanted to yell at me too.”
Ferguson’s left eye twitched. He reached into the inner pocket of his suit coat, retrieved a crumpled pack of cigarettes, and when I’d taken a breath with the intention of telling him he couldn’t smoke in my shop and I would’ve told him the same thing if he were the President of the United States, Ferguson said, “Cool it, I’m not lighting it.”
“Cool it,” I repeated, deadpan. It was my turn for an eye twitch.
“Who’s your friend, boss?” Max asked in that easygoing-bro way he had of speaking.
“Ronald Ferguson,” I answered. “Calvin’s former sarge and now… is there slang for lieutenant?”
Ferguson snapped the filter off a cigarette, put the stick to his lips, and sucked hard on the cold tobacco. “I don’t know how Winter handles you.”
“With both hands, generally.”
Ferguson bit down on the cigarette. Loose tobacco peppered his tie. “Do you, ever once, have something to say that isn’t sarcastic?”
“Not really,” Max answered for me. “But over time you learn what’s important. It’s like tuning a radio.”
I raised the box in my hands and asked Ferguson through clenched teeth, “Can I help you with something?”
Ferguson took the cigarette from his mouth and pointed at me with it. “Do you know what that is?”
“Corrugated cardboard.”
“His face is getting red,” Max warned me.
“Now listen here, you smartass—” Ferguson began.
I set the box on the nearest display, crossed my arms, and said, “Please try that again.”
Ferguson looked about ready to swallow his tongue. “I read my detectives’ reports.”
“Hm-hm.”
“I know you’re a walking encyclopedia of weird shi—stuff—and that you’ve… inadvertently helped close a few cases in the past.”
“Watch those compliments, Ron. I’m a married man.”
Ferguson drew a deep breath before adding, “It would save me a lot of time and resources if you would look inside the box and tell me what that thing is.”
“I have a consultation fee,” I said.
“And I have your husband’s still-unapproved request for next Monday off.”
“Are you blackmailing me?”
Ferguson shoved the mangled cigarette back between his lips and stared at me.
I huffed, turned to the box, and yanked open the flaps. I carefully removed an item that’d been thoughtlessly wrapped in a few feet of Bubble Wrap, and unwound the packaging just enough to reveal, on first glance, what appeared to be a clockface bolted to a slab of solid wood. I reached into my back pocket, tugged my magnifying glass free, and brought it close to read the inscriptions on the face.
Max leaned over my shoulder and said, “It looks like a clock and Ouija board had a baby.”
“That’s exactly what is it,” I murmured.
“What? Really?” Max asked.
“It’s a spiritoscope.”
“The fuck is a spiritoscope?” Ferguson interjected; more tobacco flecks sprinkled across his tie and shirt as he spoke.
“The layman’s answer: it was intended to disprove the validity of the Spiritualism movement in Victorian America,” I said.
“I don’t need the fucking layman’s explanation,” Ferguson snapped.
“Oh?” I looked at Ferguson and offered a saccharine smile. “I guess I’m used to people telling me to shut up and therefore have to consolidate an entire religious movement that lasted nearly a century, heavily influenced by sensationalism and the mass casualties seen during the Civil War and World War I, into a single sentence.”
“I want to hear more about it,” Max said with a sort of over-the-top enthusiasm clearly meant to be a jab at Ferguson.
“Do you?” I asked, just as fake.
“I sure do!”
“Well—” I began, adding a sort of dramatic, storyteller inflection to my voice, “Robert Hare, a once-prominent scientist from Philadelphia, set out to debunk the table-rappers of the 1850s by conducting a series of experiments with devices he called spiritoscopes.” I held up the item in question while adding, “This was one of several unique designs.”
Max crossed one arm over his chest and used the handle of the duster to tap his chin thoughtfully. “I see, I see. And did they disprove the movement?”
“They did not,” I said brightly. “In fact, Hare ended up converting to Spiritualism after becoming convinced of the mediums’ accuracy. He was shunned by the scientific community for the last few years of his life.”
Ferguson growled before spitting out, “How. Does. It. Work?”
“Hey,” Max chastised, motioning between him and me with the duster. “Respect the process.”
I dropped the bullshit pretense and countered with, “How did it manage to fool Hare? The same sleight of hand required to be a successful magician, I suppose. How did it work from a technical standpoint?” I looked around briefly, then told Max, “Hold out your hands.”
He tucked the duster into his back pocket and held them out, palms up.
I set the still-wrapped base in his hands and said, “Max is the table. The spiritoscope rests on its wheeled base, which allows it to move in a horizontal position—back and forth like this. The medium would rest his or her hands on this board, with the index—that’s the clock-like face—pointed away from them so they couldn’t read the results. As they moved the spiritoscope across the table, a system of pulleys—here on the side—caused this arrow on the index to move.” I picked the antique up and turned to face Ferguson. “It was thought that the spirits used the medium’s hands to spell out messages, or answer direct questions. See on the index, there’s the complete alphabet, zero through nine, as well as a few simple phrases: yes, no, think so, mistake, etcetera.”
Something in Ferguson’s expression had changed. I’m usually not very good at reading people—bad eyesight and all. I mean, if I’ve been around them long enough, consistently enough—like Max, my ex, my dad, my husband—then sure. I can definitely pick out nonverbal cues and surmise what they’re thinking. But Ferguson? I had no inkling, other than something about my explanation wasn’t sitting well with him. Like he’d eaten something sour and it was twisting his guts up.
C.S. Poe is a Lambda Literary and two-time EPIC award finalist, and a FAPA award-winning author of gay mystery, romance, and speculative fiction.
She resides in New York City, but has also called Key West and Ibaraki, Japan, home in the past. She has an affinity for all things cute and colorful and a major weakness for toys. C.S. is an avid fan of coffee, reading, and cats. She’s rescued two cats—Milo and Kasper do their best to distract her from work on a daily basis.
C.S. is an alumna of the School of Visual Arts.
Her debut novel, The Mystery of Nevermore, was published 2016.
FB GROUP / GOOGLE PLAY / B&N
KOBO / PAYHIP / SMASHWORDS
EMAIL: contact@cspoe.com
The Mystery of the Spirits #5
B&N / KOBO / iTUNES AUDIO
GOOGLE PLAY / iTUNES / AUDIBLE
Series
Interlude
Southernmost Murder
