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COLD HEART OF CAPRICORN
by Martha C. Lawrence
St. Martins, January 1998
226 pages
$out of print
ISBN: 0312962940


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

She's a parapsychologist and a licensed PI who uses all her wits and other-worldly talents to solve crimes and put the bad guys away. She knows how dangerous the world can be and she carries a gun. Her name is Elizabeth Chase and she lives in San Diego where she's emotionally and happily involved with a cop from a nearby department.

Martha Lawrence has a fine character in Elizabeth Chase, and in this second book in her developing series, she demonstrates a careful grasp of the realities of the worlds in which she has placed her protagonist. It's a place where she has to walk a fine line between the skeptics and the believers in the paranormal and the conventions and expectations of the mystery genre. I think she succeeds extremely well.

Chase has been imbued with abilities to see future outcomes, recognize significant clues within the context of crime scenes, and interpret the messages she receives--but not always. Chase is after all, human, and she is subject to the emotions and moods we all feel at times. Readers are therefore inevitably drawn into the character's struggles to interpret the signs and find the safest path to the solution.

In THE COLD HEART OF CAPRICORN Elizabeth Chase needs all the help she can get and soon. The San Diego Police are beset by a serial rapist who is giving signs of increasing frequency and greater violence. They turn to Chase for help after reviewing her impressive credentials. The case is complicated by the surprising lack of physical evidence at the crime scenes and then by the mixed and murky messages Chase begins to detect. The tension and gritty realism is heightened because Lawrence does agood job of making us feel close to soem fo the victims.

But bit by bit, even as the rapist draws close to Chase herself, she struggles to find her way through the maze. The pace rises throughout and the tension build to high levels. The solution to the case is surprising and every bit as logical as readers could desire. This is a detective, a series, and an author to watch.

Reviewed by Carl Brookins, March 2003

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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


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