“Happiness is the temporary result of denying the knowledge one already has.”
Yeesh. This book, the second featuring Claire DeWitt, just kicked me in the gut, turned me inside out. And no, that’s not the Percocet talking. I was taken in by Claire and her world in the first novel, Claire DeWitt and the City of the Dead. It was offbeat and witty and hard. I though about the characters and the place when I wasn’t reading. I was hooked. But I still wasn’t prepared for this.
There is a mystery, several of them and more than one case. The case names themselves are a treat: The Case of the Missing Miniature Horses, The Case of the Kali Yaga, The Case of the Washboard Killer, The Case of the Kleptomaniacal Occultist to name a few. SOmetimes cases are only mentioned in passing, some are the case at hand or the from the previous book, like The Case of the Green Parrot.
Claire is back in San Francisco, working with her assistant Claude, when she gets a call. Paul Casablanca, a former flame of hers has been found murdered and the detective on the case called her because she was also friends with his wife, someone was needed on scene to help her. She takes the case on herself and it is this case that is the comon thread in the book. The one that almost the end of her. They are also working the Case of the Missing Miniature Horses and in alternating chapters, she recounts The Case of the End of the World, which she worked with her friends Tracey and Kelly back in the day in Brooklyn. It is in the recounting of this that we really see what an unreliable witness Claire is to her own life. She’s already told us and those around her not to trust her and this really drives her point home. And it made me love her all the more.
Aside from Claude, there are interesting folk that I hope with turn up time and again, like Nick, her Chinese Herbalist, the lama, Red the Detective (who lives out in the Redwoods) and Bix the book dealer. And out in the world there’s Andray and Terrell and Mick. But most of all, I am looking forward to more of this amazing mish mash of philosophy, mystery and the hard hard business of getting at the truth, no matter the cost.
“Constance helped Mick see that there are never any sides. Only things we understand and things we have chosen to pretend we don’t understand. Only those we admit we love and those we pretend we don’t recognize.”
