WEREWOLF SINGS THE BLUES

A reckless singer gets dragged on a cross-country chase by her supposed adoptive brother—who’s also a werewolf—in the second Midnight Magic Mystery.

Eight long years before the events of What’s a Witch to Do? (2013), Vivian Dahl is working as a part-time chanteuse whose best days include drugs and booze. She notices a man at her latest gig giving her the eye but thinks nothing of it until she’s attacked by a group of men and the stranger steps in to save her life. Jason, or Blondie, as Viv takes to calling him, claims to have been sent by Viv’s long-absent father, Frank. Viv can’t decide if it’s weirder that her father is back in the picture or that one of Jason’s hands appears to be a paw, but she has little choice but to accept his help. As the two high-tail it across the country to Maryland, stoic Jason fills in Viv on her father’s werewolf identity and his own. Apparently, Frank didn’t want to leave his family but was afraid to put them in danger. Viv’s not sure she trusts this Jason, especially when he claims that Frank took him in and raised him as one of his own. Now she has 3,000 miles to figure out who’s telling the truth and why someone’s out to kill her. Glimpses into the lives of later characters in the series, like Mona McGregor and Adam Blue, are as good as this installment gets, for poor Vivian just doesn’t have the same magic.

An overdose of back story weighs down this mix of thriller and romance.