Book Review: The Clairvoyant Countess by Dorothy Gilman (Madame Karitska #1)

Stars: 3 out of 5

Pros: Strong characters, some interesting cases

Cons: More short stories than novel, supernatural element weakens story as well

The Bottom Line:

Psychic solving crimes

Many stories in this book

Weaker than I’d hoped

I Saw My Reaction Coming, but Not for the Reasons I Expected

Anyone who knows me knows that I am a huge Mrs. Pollifax fan.  But, until last year, I hadn’t read any of author Dorothy Gilman’s non-Mrs. Pollifax books.  One reason was The Clairvoyant Countess.  I tend to avoid the supernatural, and, quite obviously, that would be a large part of the book.  While that did bother me, there were other issues with the book.

Originally released in 1975, this book introduces us to Madame Karitska, who has the gift of physic powers.  She also has quite the background, having fled from Russia to wind up in the United States after several stops along the way in Europe.

This book is really a series of stories as she helps Lieutenant Pruden solve several cases.  At first, he is skeptical of her abilities, but he slowly grows to trust her even if he doesn’t quite believe her.  There’s the dead young woman who came to Madame Karitska for a reading before she died.  Then there’s the three-year-old case where the woman charged with the murders claimed she didn’t do it.  And what about Madame Karitska’s prophecies about Lieutenant Pruden’s future?

As I was expecting, the supernatural element really did bother me here.  Usually, when I pick up a book which features something like that, I am willing to make an allowance for it, but I just couldn’t get past it here.

I think part of it was because it felt a bit too powerful.  Basically, as each story goes along, Madame Karitska gets a chance to have a reading, and then she passes the information along to Lieutenant Pruden, who then has to figure out what it means for his case.  They two are definitely co main characters, but even so, it felt like her visions were too powerful.  And, in some ways, I felt like she was a background character in her own story since he got so much page time.

I think another part of the problem is that I was expecting a novel when I picked this up.  Yes, there are times something from an earlier story pops up later in the book, but many of these stories could stand on their own just fine.  I felt like it was more a short story collection than a novel.  There are some arcs, mostly for Lieutenant Pruden, but very little to truly tie things together.

And yet, I did enjoy my time with the characters.  Both Madame Karitska and Lieutenant Pruden are nice characters, and some of the other characters who pop up several times are also fun.  The stories themselves are interesting.

The Clairvoyant Countess isn’t a complete miss for me.  But it isn’t as strong as I would have liked it to be.