A Holiday Murder in The Ghost Of Villa Winter

An excursion takes an unexpected turn

English psychic Clarissa Wilkinson wants some adventure during her Canary Islands vacation. In Isobel Blackthorn’s The Ghost Of Villa Winter, she boards a tour bus to Villa Winter on Fuerteventura. The excursion soon provides more than an unusual place to visit: she discovers a body inside a chest.

That discovery gives the setting a direct role in the mystery. Clarissa arrives as a visitor, so she must respond to a crime in a place she has only just come to explore. The holiday premise offers a clear route from curiosity to unwanted involvement.

An unlikely investigating pair

Clarissa joins forces with Richard Parry, a hapless crime writer, to work through the clues. Her psychic identity and his connection to crime writing make them an unusual partnership. They bring different associations to the inquiry, but they still have to turn what they discover into an answer about the killer.

Readers who enjoy amateur investigators away from home can follow how the pair approaches the problem. The useful attraction is their unexpected collaboration after a specific discovery, rather than an assumed supernatural explanation for the murder.

Keeping the setting within the story

This Canary Islands mystery uses Villa Winter as part of its fictional intrigue. It is a choice for a destination-centered murder story. Claims about the building’s real wartime use require historical sources and are not necessary to describe Clarissa’s predicament.