The stuff I pick up and somehow, am able to complete! Now that I am not commuting every day by train, I seem to be more selective than these two books.
Dorothy Gilman's "The Clairvoyant Countess" was published in the mid-1970's; one of the "bad guys" runs a network of ice cream and popsicle sales trucks (actually selling drugs under cover) tracked by a computer that takes up an entire commercial space basement! So the story was modern in its day. Madame Karitska is a clairvoyant, not a fortune teller; an older lady with a long series of adventures behind her; she works in cooperation with Detective Lt. Prudden of the Police Dept of a fictional large city, solving a series of crimes using her powers.
Dorothy Gilman wrote the Mrs. Polifax series, which I have not dipped into; probably won't. Another of her novels, "Caravan" from 1992 I liked. Sadly, Gilman passed away in 2012.
Anne Cleeland, another American writer who writes British police thrillers: her story "Murder in Thrall-An Acton and Doyle Scotland Yard Mystery" was found as an "advance uncorrected proof" from my local (and wonderful) paperback exchange. It's a pretty standard detective "let's try to guess who done it".
I was shocked at the set-up: Acton is a celebrated senior detective sleuth with New Scotland Yard; a member of the the nobility, as well. But he is a sicko---not completely criminal since he works for "good"; he develops a complete emotional and sexual fixation on a young police trainee, Doyle (who is naive, attractive, Irish, working class but motivated, spirited and gifted with an ability to magically detect when someone is lying). Out of the blue, he pops up with a marriage proposal and she accepts it instead of reporting him to HR! He's done creepy things like sneaking into her apartment, before this.
How, in today's world, did this book get published. But apparently, the series is pretty popular.
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