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HIGH PRIESTESS
by David Skibbins
St Martin's Minotaur, April 2006
288 pages
$23.95
ISBN: 0312352336


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

Things are going well for Warren Ritter. He has a thriving tarot reading business in a prime spot on Berkeley's busy Telegraph Avenue. His relationship with his girlfriend, Sally, is deepening. He's even getting somewhere in therapy. But it seems that no matter how hard he tries, his past won't leave him alone.

No one in his present life knows that Warren Ritter was once named Richard Green, or that in the 1960s and early 1970s he was a leader in an organization called the Weather Underground, a group of radicals committed to the revolutionary overthrow of the US government. He'd just as soon forget that period of his life, but he knows that if his true identity were ever discovered he could be facing jail time.

So when a man calling himself Edward Hightower shows up at Warren's tarot table and threatens to expose him unless he can figure out who murdered two prominent members of the Church of Satan, Warren has little choice but to investigate.

To make matters worse, Edward Hightower's sister turns out to be Veronique, the beautiful and manipulative woman who once shared Warren's passion for the Weather Underground. Hightower and his sister are afraid that they will be next on the murder's list and Warren begins to believe them as the body count continues to mount and someone takes a shot at Veronique in the parking lot of a local restaurant.

Soon Warren himself becomes the target of the police investigation. In order to get at the truth behind these murders, Warren must come face-to-face with his past and learn to trust those he loves.

As in his previous book, the well-received EIGHT OF SWORDS, Skibbins paints a vivid picture of Berkeley and the Bay Area. Warren is a complex character and Skibbins manages pitch perfect prose when he describes both Warren's politics and his bipolar disorder. His relationship with his disabled girlfriend, Sally, is sensitively drawn, but several of the minor characters verge on unconvincing stereotypes.

While this book isn't as carefully constructed as the EIGHT OF SWORDS, the story careens along at a nice pace for most of the ride. Unfortunately, there are a few too many coincidences to satisfy any but the most credulous reader.

Reviewed by Carroll Johnson, January 2006

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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


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