Cover of Kaleidoscope

Kaleidoscope

Madame Karitska series

Next to the incomparable Mrs. Pollifax, Dorothy Gilman's best-loved character is the mysterious Madame Karitska, who is blessed with a powerful gift of clairvoyance that attracts to her a stream of men and women craving help with their misfortunes, desperate to know what the future holds. . . .

Read more

When a brilliant young violinist dies in a horrific accident, Madame Karitska has only to hold the victim's instrument in her hands to perceive the shocking truth. But when an insecure wife asks whether her husband will abandon her to join a sinister cult, Madame Karitska-as wise as she is lovely-chooses not to reveal all that she foresees. And when an attache case is suddenly dropped into her lap by a man fleeing a crowded subway, she knows it's time to consult her good friend Detective-Lieutenant Pruden.

A nine-year-old accused of murder, a man dying a slow death by witchcraft- for the hunted and the haunted, Madame Karitska's shabby downtown apartment becomes a haven, where brilliant patterns of violence, greed, passion, and strange obsessions mix and disintegrate with stunning, kaleidoscopic beauty.

Once again Dorothy Gilman exercises her own uncanny power to render readers spellbound.

From the Hardcover edition.

Audience
adult
Length
medium · 256 pages

Click a tag to see books like this one that share it. Point at it (on a phone, tap it) for less of it instead.

Read it? Sign in to help tag it.

Liked Kaleidoscope? Here’s where I’d start.

These suit anyone who liked Kaleidoscope. Sign in and mark a few books for picks shaped around your own taste.

  1. Aunt Dimity and the Next of Kin Shares mystery, cozy mystery, paranormal
  2. The Thief of Venice Shares mystery, cozy mystery, fiction
  3. A Fine Old Conflict Shares and
  4. Death Takes a Bow Shares mystery, cozy mystery, fiction

“People who read Kaleidoscope tend to reach for these next.”

  1. The Cincinnati Red Stalkings
  2. Murder at the Feast of Rejoicing
  3. Miss Pinkerton
  4. The Spring Cleaning Murders

“If you want more of the same (mystery), start with these.”

  1. Brewing Trouble
  2. The Seventh Sinner
  3. The Copenhagen Connection
  4. Bone Hunter

“If it was the cozy mystery that hooked you, try one of these.”

  1. Till the End of Tom
  2. Dead as a Dodo
  3. Dead of the Day
  4. Good and Dead

“These start from a similar idea, even if they go somewhere else with it.”

  1. Voice of the Violin
  2. A Stranger's Touch
  3. Orchestrated Death
  4. The Museum of Useless Efforts