Author Brunonia Barry has deep roots in Salem, Massachusetts. Her family’s been living there since the 1630s, and she’s written three witchy murder mysteries set in the spooky North Shore town. The latest is The Fifth Petal, a plot-heavy whodunit that connects the murder to a ne’er-do-well teenager with the deaths of three young women – alleged witches, of course – a quarter century earlier. The book is narrated alternately by an alcoholic police chief, a crazy old lady who talks a lot about banshees, and one of the victim’s daughters, who has some eerie premonitions of her own.
photo: Scott Booth Photography