Kaleidoscope features Madame Karitska, a psychic with a colorful past who does readings from her home. Many of the characters from the first book reappear here, as do some of the plot elements including a fateful dinner party. This book nominally takes place a year or so after the events of The Clairvoyant Countess, which could not be clearly pegged to a particular date but felt like the 1970s. This book references 9/11 and other recent events in U.S. history. Once again, a range of clients and incidents eventually lead to a single interlaced pattern. Starting with local criminals and domestic problems, it progresses to a cult and domestic terrorism. Dorothy Gilman likes to neatly match up single characters (all straight of course), and this story is no different with two couples coming together. Unlike her usual upbeat message, this book ends on a somewhat ominous note. The plight of the Romany is mentioned, including their persecution in Nazi Germany and general prejudice against them in the U.S. While most of the characters in the book are white, there are a couple of African Americans--one is running a shoestring charity in a bad neighborhood, the other is a medical doctor who apparently emigrated from a country in Africa. They are sympathetically portrayed, but I find it curious that when Madame Karitska is faced with a client who appears to be dying for no clear reason and who spent time in Africa, her obvious solution is to go talk to the (one) African-American of her acquaintance, who of course knows an African doctor who can deal with what appears to be witchcraft. She also confronts Old World (as in European) witchcraft, or at least superstition. If you liked the first book, then look for this one, since it is very similar. ( )

Just reread this one. I don't like it quite as much as the first one, The Clairvoyant Countess, but it's still a fun book. For one thing, we never get an explanation of how it's supposed to be a year after the first book, but we go from Hippies to Y2K. Still.

For some reason, I found the stories in the first one to be more interesting. But the story of the cult (can't remember the name) and the young mom who's debating on following her husband into the commune was really well done.

CMB ( )

Sweet episodic story about a psychic helping the police and all sorts of people

The sequel to The Clairvoyant Countess, this book continues in the same vein as the previous book.

The novel becomes where the previous novel left off- Madame Karitska continues to provide readings to different people, who at first don't seem to go together.

Although the two novels were written decades apart, it's very difficult to tell- they move seamlessly together. ( )

Fun combination of detective and metaphysical elements - wish she'd written more about this detective. ( )