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THIRTEEN DIAMONDS
by Alan Cook
First Publish, Inc, October 2000
165 pages
$14.00
ISBN: 1929925328


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

A bridge lover's dream -- to be dealt thirteen cards of the same suit. The odds against it are probably higher than the probability of getting conked by an asteroid. In this case, Nobel Prize winner Gerald Weiss is dealt thirteen diamonds -- and promptly keels over dead. His death is traced to shellfish poisoning (he is allergic to shellfish, and his windpipe closes when he ingests them). Was the doctoring of the tuna casserole that the bridge club members ate at lunch accidental or intentional?

Enter Lillian Morgan, a retired Duke mathematics professor and another bridge player at Silver Acres, the retirement community where both she and Weiss live. Believing that Weiss was murdered, she pursues information about the background of the bridge club members and the others in the retirement community, enlisting her friend Tess, her son, and her granddaughter Sandra in the enterprise. As she probes, she finds ample motivation for murder in several quarters.

Lillian (according the the author, inspired by women he's known in a retirement community) proves that age does not necessarily mean the loss of one's marbles or of one's sense of curiosity. The other members of the community are just as feisty and aware as Lillian, especially hr cohort Tess and Wesley, the association president, who proves invaluable when some decoding is necessary.

Outside the retirement community, one of the most interesting characters is the bartender, Mark, who apparently delivered the fatal shellfish to Silver Acres. Working on a Ph.D. in physics, he proves a man of many varied and important talents as well as a prospective mate for the divorced Sandra.

Problems. The issue of the thirteen diamonds as a clue is pretty much dropped. There were too many largely irrelevant math puzzles, but there was no explanation of what Fiat Money is, the subject of a book largely responsible for Weiss' winning the Nobel. I may be a minority of one, but I find the almost required scenes of physical jeopardy at the end very tedious.

Altogether, Lillian Morgan is someone you will enjoy spending time with.

Reviewed by Mary Elizabeth Devine, March 2002

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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


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