Kaleidoscope

by Dorothy Gilman

Ebook, 2002

Status

Available

Call number

Fic SF Gilman

Publication

New York : Ballantine Books, 2003, c2002.

Description

Next to the incomparable Mrs. Pollifax, Dorothy Gilman's best-loved character is the mysterious Madame Karitska, who is blessed with a powerful gift of clairvoyance that attracts to her a stream of men and women craving help with their misfortunes, desperate to know what the future holds. . . . When a brilliant young violinist dies in a horrific accident, Madame Karitska has only to hold the victim's instrument in her hands to perceive the shocking truth. But when an insecure wife asks whether her husband will abandon her to join a sinister cult, Madame Karitska-as wise as she is lovely-chooses not to reveal all that she foresees. And when an attaché case is suddenly dropped into her lap by a man fleeing a crowded subway, she knows it's time to consult her good friend Detective-Lieutenant Pruden. A nine-year-old accused of murder, a man dying a slow death by witchcraft- for the hunted and the haunted, Madame Karitska's shabby downtown apartment becomes a haven, where brilliant patterns of violence, greed, passion, and strange obsessions mix and disintegrate with stunning, kaleidoscopic beauty. Once again Dorothy Gilman exercises her own uncanny power to render readers spellbound.… (more)

User reviews

LibraryThing member elliezann

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 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.

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LibraryThing member cmbohn

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

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LibraryThing member zina

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

LibraryThing member franoscar

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

LibraryThing member justchris

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.

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LibraryThing member librisissimo

Pleasant but not outstanding. Relies a little over-much on familiarity with the protagonist and her history. Sloppy copy-editing.

LibraryThing member Cheryl_in_CC_NV

For all the 'thrilling' words in the description, this is a pretty light read. ?�Yes, yucky stuff happens. ?Ã¡But the good guys always win. ?Ã¡And the good guys are good, and the bad guys are bad.?Ã¡ 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. ?Ã¡But I wanted to read something different, and this seemed like it would be fun, and it was, and I enjoyed it. ?Ã¡I wouldn't mind reading the first book about the psychic, but I don't think I'll seek it out. ?Ã¡Ditto the author's other character.

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LibraryThing member jjmcgaffey

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 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.

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LibraryThing member JBarringer

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.

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LibraryThing member leslie.98

2019 reread:
I hadn't had enough of Madame Karitska when I finished "The Clairvoyant Countess" so I immediately reread this sequel. It is a little odd that while this book was written ~25 years after the first one, only about a year has passed in the life of the characters.

LibraryThing member SandyAMcPherson

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.

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