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San Francisco Mystery Bookstore4175 - 24TH STREET, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94114
Circles of Confusion Pisces Rising Circles of Confusion by April Henry Circles of Confusion is April Henry’s first Claire Montrose novel. The book was released in hardcover in 1999 and has just recently been released in paperback. Claire Montrose works for the DMV in Portland, Oregon as a vanity plate specialist. It is Claire’s responsibility to make sure that requested vanity plates meet a certain criteria and are not in any way obscene, lewd, etc. Claire gets a telephone call from her mother, Jean, informing her that her great aunt, Maddy, had died and left her somewhat meager estate to Claire. Claire has only vague memories of her great-aunt, having not seen her in over 15 years but she agrees to drive to Medford, Oregon, to retrieve her so-called inheritance. Claire’s boyfriend, Evan, insists on accompanying her, assuming she cannot do anything on her own. Do the words anal-retentive and chauvinistic mean anything? Let us hope she loses him and soon. All is not what it appears to be when they arrive at her aunt’s trailer in Medford. Years of living alone and hoarding are what Claire and Evan find. Nevertheless, with Claire’s persistence and perhaps her bureaucratic background, she perseveres and finds a diary of her aunt’s begun during WWII when she was a WAC stationed in Munich. The diary exposes a side of Maddie that no one knew and exposes Claire to a great deal of jeopardy. Remember that a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing. I thoroughly enjoyed Circles of Confusion and would recommend it for those readers who enjoy a minimum of violence, much excitement with a little bit of art history thrown in. Ironically, this is the second book that I have read in so many weeks which attempts to come to terms with the pillaging of art work which the Nazis did so well during WWII with lots of help from the Swiss, but that’s another story. Rochelle Krich’s, Blood Money, also deals with the subject but in more detail and with much more poignant plotting. At the end of each chapter, Claire leaves us with a license plate anagram to figure out. There is a glossary at the end of the book to help you out. I found this a bit intrusive but it was fun just the same. April’s new Claire Monitors mystery, has just been released in hardback and both of these books are available through our Website. Pisces Rising by Martha C. Lawerence This is Martha Lawrence’s fourth Elizabeth Chase novel. Elizabeth is a private investigator living in San Diego. Elizabeth does not solve crimes the old fashioned way – or maybe she does. She is a psychic investigator. Now, this is no Jackie Stallone we’re talking about here. Elizabeth uses her heart, her unusual sixth sense and her special visions to alert her to things that are not right. I will not give away the tragic circumstances in which Elizabeth found herself at the end of Aquarius Descending – Lawerence’s last Elizabeth Chase book. In this latest novel, Elizabeth has to cope with a major loss as well as the "usual suspects" who don’t want her snooping around. I don’t hold much stock in psychic powers but I am a believer of Elizabeth Chase. She doesn’t work at receiving psychic images, they just appear whether in dreams or even disguised in human form. In Pisces Rising, Elizabeth is asked to investigate the horrendous murder of a casino operator on a Southern California Indian Reservation. An alcoholic, doctor, addicted to gambling has been accused of the scalping and murder of the casino operator and it is up to Elizabeth to find the truth. Casino gaming on Indian Reservations is a huge industry in California and is a topical issue right now. The reservations want to keep their autonomy but the state sees big bucks coming out of the casinos and wants its share. Could this be why Dan Aquillo was killed? Or was it because of a "tribal war" being fought on the reservation among who want to protect the ancient rituals and symbols of the Temecu tribe and those who ridicule them? When I begin a book, if I get a little flutter in my stomach, I know it’s going to be good. That doesn’t happen real often but this time it did. A character doesn’t have to be likeable in order for the book to be good, but Elizabeth is both likeable and believable, two important elements in a mystery.
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