by Dorothy Gilman
Dorothy Gilman is most well-known for her series of Mrs. Pollifax spy/adventure novels. It is a pity that we have only this one volume of the adventures of Madame Karitska, for she is a likeable and engaging character.
Like Mrs. Pollifax, Madame Karitska is a middle-aged woman, like Mrs. Pollifax she sets out on a new path late in life. Born to wealthy Russian aristocracy who lost all during the Revolution, she spent her childhood as a beggar. ‘By the time she was ten Madame Karitska had discovered a way to make paper flowers to sell in the bazaars at feast days, and by doing this she accumulated enough profit to move her family to Kabul, where they prospered and she became a student. In the years since then she had lost two husbands and a considerable fortune to both war and politics, but she merely considered it the rounding of the circle.’ She now lives in Trafton, New Jersey, eking out a living as a milliner.
But Madame Karistiska is also a clairvoyant, a psychic. After having a vision several times she gives up her milliner’s job, moves into an apartment on 8th street in Trafton, New Jersey, and begins to do Readings for clients.
Ch 1 – A young woman comes for a reading, and Madame Karitska warns her that she’s in danger from someone close to her. The girl refuses to believe, and storms out of the apartment.
Ch 2 – The girl, Alison Bartlett, is found murdered, and Detective Inspector Frank Pruden is put on the case. He finds the address of Madame Karitska’s in her address book, and visits the psychic. He is skeptical of her statement – that the girl wasn’t killed by a stranger (for such it seems), and also her comment that his father, who is ill and expected to die, will actually survive – but when THAT prediction proves true, he decides to take her words a bit more seriously.
Ch 3 – Pruden interviews Alison’s lawyer, and learns details about her life in her home town and discovers a reason for murder.
Ch 4 – Madame Karitska agrres to give readings at a socialite’s garden party. (She is not a fortune teller, she is a clairvoyant.) There she meets Mr. Faber Jones, who after an accident finds that he can see...things, and he doesn’t like what he sees. Upon her return homre, Pruden comes and tells her of the success of his investigation and that he owes it all to her. She performs a reading for him – and predicts that within a year he will be married, and will rise high in the police force – if he survives a brush with death.
Ch 5 – Pruden comes visiting. There has been a rash of thefts at an exclusive boy’s school. Can she, by handling all the class rings from a certain dormitory, discover who is responsible? Madame Karitska requests that one of the boys, Gavin O’Connell, be brought to her.
Ch 6 – Madame Karitska sees John Painter about to steal some necklaces in order to get his guitar out of hock. She prevents him, and instead persuades Faber Jones to start a record label.
Ch 7 – Pruden comes to dinner at Madame Karitska’s, and tells her of the suicide of a woman who had been suspected of murdering three people years before. Madame Karitska is able to tell him that this woman, of low intelligence, was totally innocent, and framed for the crimes by her lover.
Ch 8 – Can a man die – killed by superstition? Pruden asks Madame Karitska, who knows that voodoo is involved.
Ch 9 – Madame Karitska persuades Pruden that the vicitm of the voodoo curse is actually the victim of a crime, and there’s something more involved...the victim was an ice-cream truck driver and the mob appears to be moving in on the profession.
Ch 10 – ‘'The past is not repeating itself,'’ Madame Karitska tells Pruden. ''You speak of bombings and kidnappings, but someone has entered the picture who sidesteps physical violence. Now there is violence against the spirit...you do not feel that the mind of a man who could conceive of such a murder is infinitely more subtle, infinitely more sophisticated and dangerous than your Syndicate criminal?'' So dangerous is this criminal, in fact, that Pruden barely escapes with his life.
Ch 11 – Faber Jones’ wife has left him, but he’s rallying and decides to start anew. He holds a dinner party to which he invites several people and Madame Karitska. She is invited to do Readings for them and learns many things that the group would prefer to keep undiscovered.
Ch 12 – Odd things have been happening in a clean-cut residential block – several youngsters have had bouts of mania, and the neighbors suspect a recluse of being a witch. It is soon learned that the children have been poisoned.
Ch 13 – The teenagers in the block combine forces with Madame Karitska and Pruden to discover what is happening in the neighborhood.
Ch 14 – An elderly couple come to Madame Karitska, begging her ot hold a séance so they can receive a message from their granddaughter, who was recently killed in a car accident. Her body was so badly burned that she was unidentifiable except for rings found in the ashes, and her passport which had landed outside the car. Madame Karitska is convinced that the girl is still alive, yet if so, where has she been for the three days in which no one has seen her? The second of Madame Karitska’s predictions for Lieutenant Pruden comes true in this taut and touching tale.
The Clairvoyant Countess is a fast-paced, enjoyable series of tales, told with Dorothy Gilman’s sure skill. The characters are drawn with affection, the mysteries are intriguing, the clairvoyant powers of Madame Karitska provide aid but do not overshadow the mysteries. Much recommended.
This review copyright June 14, 2000.
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