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A book of interconnected short stories about, unsurprisingly, a clairvoyant Countess.
After falling upon hard times, the psychic Madame Karitska is now living in genteel poverty in New York City. But being psychic gives you an edge in finding a new apartment, and also telling you when to start a business. The book follows Madam Karitska’s psychic practice, where she encounters a number of people who are the victims of odd crimes. Because of this she meets a police officer, Detective Pruden. After that the book relies less on crime victims coming to her and more on Pruden, who is a skeptic who gets mostly converted, bringing crimes to her. In between she rescues a young man from shoplifting, meets interesting people while reading Tarot at parties, and so forth.
Each mystery is effectively an individual story, but there is a through line involving her relationships with the various people she meets along the way, and also some previous mysteries have later repercussions. It's a very fun book, with her psychic powers being the equivalent of Sherlock Holmes' deductive abilities. They gave her an intuitive edge, which she uses to solve the mystery, but she still has to do the leg work and figure some things out for herself.
The book falls on the line between dated and period piece, but for the most part on the positive side. You can tell that Gilman was very interested in different ways of seeing the world and reality, both personally and culturally. I'm sure that some of her depictions of other cultures are not perfectly sensitive or accurate, but she takes everyone seriously, is genuinely interested in trying to see things from other perspectives, and most importantly believes that all perspectives have equal value.
It's not as good as my favorite Dorothy Gilman books (The Tightrope Walker, A Nun in the Closet,, and the first few Mrs. Pollifax books) but I liked it as much or more as my medium favorite Mrs Pollifax books. It's got a very vivid New York City milieu, and Madame Karitska is a great character.
After falling upon hard times, the psychic Madame Karitska is now living in genteel poverty in New York City. But being psychic gives you an edge in finding a new apartment, and also telling you when to start a business. The book follows Madam Karitska’s psychic practice, where she encounters a number of people who are the victims of odd crimes. Because of this she meets a police officer, Detective Pruden. After that the book relies less on crime victims coming to her and more on Pruden, who is a skeptic who gets mostly converted, bringing crimes to her. In between she rescues a young man from shoplifting, meets interesting people while reading Tarot at parties, and so forth.
Each mystery is effectively an individual story, but there is a through line involving her relationships with the various people she meets along the way, and also some previous mysteries have later repercussions. It's a very fun book, with her psychic powers being the equivalent of Sherlock Holmes' deductive abilities. They gave her an intuitive edge, which she uses to solve the mystery, but she still has to do the leg work and figure some things out for herself.
The book falls on the line between dated and period piece, but for the most part on the positive side. You can tell that Gilman was very interested in different ways of seeing the world and reality, both personally and culturally. I'm sure that some of her depictions of other cultures are not perfectly sensitive or accurate, but she takes everyone seriously, is genuinely interested in trying to see things from other perspectives, and most importantly believes that all perspectives have equal value.
It's not as good as my favorite Dorothy Gilman books (The Tightrope Walker, A Nun in the Closet,, and the first few Mrs. Pollifax books) but I liked it as much or more as my medium favorite Mrs Pollifax books. It's got a very vivid New York City milieu, and Madame Karitska is a great character.
