At a meeting of thirteen of Santa Fe's leading New Age healers, Quentin Bouvier, a magician and possibly a reincarnated Egyptian pharaoh, has been hanged from the rafters. He outbid Leonard Quarry for astrologer Eliza Remington's antique tarot card and now he's dead and the tarot card is missing. The police quickly arrest Giacamo Bernardi, a tarot reader, and charge him with the murder and theft. Bernardi's court-appointed attorney hires private investigator Joshua Croft to prove Bernardi's innocence. Suspects from the meeting and the community abound, including astrologers and psychics, a young hermit immersed in "Spiritual Alchemy," an aging movie star who acts as a medium for an entity from Alpha Centauri, a Native American shaman who gets accountants in touch with their warrior within, and a mysterious Asian woman whose equally mysterious brother displays a near-lethal familiarity with martial arts.
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Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Santa Fe PI Joshua Croft gets a lively introduction to New Age spiritualism when defense attorney Sally Durrell hires him to investigate the murder of Quentin Bouvier, a practitioner of "High Magic." During a gathering of healers and psychics at the home of Brad Freefall and Sylvia Morningstar, Quentin was coshed with a healing crystal and then strangled with a scarf belonging to Sally's client, Tarot card reader Giacomo Bernardi. Before the murder, Quentin had shown off his recently purchased, very valuable antique Tarot card, which is now missing. The newly widowed Justine takes the death calmly, perhaps because she believes that "the essential Quentin" remains, or perhaps because she's having an affair with "spiritual alchemist" Peter Jones. Another murder occurs as Joshua tries to divine the straight, this-world scoop from a cast that includes an astrologer and an ex-actress with a hotline to Alpha Centauri. Satterthwait ( A Flower in the Desert ) offers a neat surprise at the end of this entertaining adventure, but he also withholds clues and obscures some of the logic that leads to the resolution, a tactic some readers may find irksome.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
From Kirkus Reviews
Thirteen people attended the meeting of New Age healers at which reputed Satanist Quentin Bouvier was killed--hanged from the rafters- -after outbidding dealer Leonard Quarry for astrologer Eliza Remington's antique Tarot card. And by the time the fat lady (not Eliza) sings, Santa Fe shamus Joshua Croft (Wall of Glass, A Flower in the Desert) has interviewed each of the 12 survivors--including Leonard Quarry, who survives the interview only by a couple of minutes. Hired to vindicate Tarot reader Giacomo Bernardi, laid-back, skeptical Joshua finds lots of quirky kooks and crooks--a spiritual alchemist, a Saku master (don't ask), a muscle-bound New Age Sioux-- but there's precious little interaction between the suspects (despite the best efforts of Bouvier's predatory widow Justine, who's been sleeping around with more vigor than discrimination): except for a couple of violent interludes, this is basically a series of sedate Golden Age interviews. Interesting people, humdrum detection--nothing to raise your blood pressure to unhealthy levels. -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
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3.0 out of 5 stars
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This review is from: The Hanged Man: A Joshua Croft Mystery (Joshua Croft Mysteries) (Paperback)
The Hanged Man is worth a read if you are an avid mystery fan. But it is not the greatest book you will ever read.
One of the strong points of The Hanged Man is the setting. Walter Satterthwait does a good job of grounding his novel in Sante Fe; he makes the setting come alive. He also provides enough compelling scenes to keep the pages turning. There is, for instance, a chase scene on a mountain road that is particularly good. Few mystery fans will find themselves bored by The Hanged Man. Other elements of the story are not as strong. The story is basic and unimaginative. Essentially, a group of people spends the night in a house; someone murders one of the group. The rest of the book attempts to unravel the mystery. Satterthwait makes a stab at a twist ending, but it seems contrived and completely unbelievable. The characters are the weakest element of The Hanged Man. Satterthwait has no apparent ability to make his protagonists come alive for the reader; the characters lack depth, so you are always aware that you are reading a novel. Most of the suspects in the murder are caricatures of New Age devotees; Satterthwait encourages you to look down at each of them. Moreover, the protagonists in the Hanged Man often behave in ways that are not entirely believable; for instance, one character chooses to leave Sante Fe to go on a shopping trip the morning after someone sends her boyfriend to the hospital in a failed murder attempt. (To be fair, Satterthwait tries to explain this behavior later in the book, but I still found this part of the story unconvincing). Perhaps the biggest problem with The Hanged Man is that the private eye, Joshua Croft, is pompous and unlikeable. Croft smugly condescends to everyone he meets and the reader, clearly, is supposed to share the same attitude. At one point in The Hanged Man, Croft becomes involved in a fight; I realized, to my surprise, that I wanted the other guy to win. I read an interview in which Satterthwait said that he chose not to continue with the Croft series, in part, due to disappointing sales. A likeable private eye might have made these books sell a bit better. The Hanged Man is not bad, but it is far inferior to the best mystery novels.
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