Kaleidoscope

Madame Karitska returns! This was written much later, and clearly Gilman has matured as an author. For one thing, the episodes are not so episodic - events near the beginning of the book echo back and affect later stories. For that matter, events from The Clairvoyant Countess play a part in this one - if only through characters introduced there and fleshed out here. I think Alpha was far too easily dealt with - it would have been interesting (though not really fitting in this book) to have him come back and have to deal with his wife's flowering. Coincidence plays a large part (though Gilman tries to lampshade that with a discussion of free will and limited choices) - Mary, Anna, the dinner party, etc. It's still a light and somewhat show more fluffy book, but worth reading and probably rereading. And there are loose threads, though not major ones - has she really firmly decided about Amos? And what about the courier - he thinks he knows his end, but it hasn't happened yet. Etcetera. show less

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

Mrs. Pollifax , a character by Dorothy Gilman, has always been one of my favorite sleuths and, now, I must add Gilman's Madame Karitska. She is a woman of a certain age who has seen much unhappiness in her life yet still manages to find joy. She has also been blessed with psychometry, the ability to "see" another person's personality, then tries to help that person cope-something like a psychic yet she must hold an object of that peron to figure out their best course of action.
In this second book of the series, Madame Karitska solves all types of mysteries from a woman hoping to become her own person to a disappearance of a young carny worker. She has a trusty helper in Detective Pruden as well as past paople she has helped. The story show more is really a series of vignettes as all sorts of people come to consult her abouit their problems.
Ms. Gilman is very casual in her writing making you know the characters immediately. They could be your friens or neighbors. The author draws the reader in effortlessly and if you have a problem you feel she is the one who can help.
A delightful, fast-paced read. show less

For all the 'thrilling' words in the description, this is a pretty light read. ?áYes, yucky stuff happens. ?áBut the good guys always win. ?áAnd the good guys are good, and the bad guys are bad.?á Easy to stomach, quick to read.
Now here's the deal: I've read almost no mysteries or thrillers and so have no real basis for comparison. ?áBut I wanted to read something different, and this seemed like it would be fun, and it was, and I enjoyed it. ?áI wouldn't mind reading the first book about the psychic, but I don't think I'll seek it out. ?áDitto the author's other character.

This was an excellent adventure following on with the tales of Madame Karitska's life as a clairvoyant reader of people. As before, the story is told over a series of chapters that evolve from her clients' lives. Mme K's abilities together with the police solve a number of criminal cases.

I liked the pacing in Gilman's Madame K stories. There is mystery and suspense tempered with a gentleness evoked by the main protagonist. It was never boring and Gilman has an uncanny ability to create atmosphere and thrills yet remain in the 'cozy mystery' genre.

Interesting variation on a short story collection. This cosy mystery of sorts features a psychic who solves several different mysteries, sequentially, so that the chapters could be almost stand-alone short stories except that they are linked into a novel. The psychic is consistent enough that it is pretty to suspend disbelief about her abilities, though I wondered at times why she could not do readings on some of the available objects- murder weapons, belongings of missing people, etc., that might have made some of the cases much easier, and thus made the stories shorter.

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 show more 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. show less