A review by ncrabb
Ask the Cards a Question by Marcia Muller
3.0
Sharon McCone comes home late one night to find a formidable collection of cop cars in front of her apartment building. Being the good private detective she is, she shoulders her way through the crowd of cops and learns that someone murdered her neighbor, Molly Antonio. Her apartment building hosts a collection of strange renters, and there’s no end to the possible suspects. Sharon’s best friend, Linnea Carraway, was the last person to see Molly alive, and she rapidly moves up the list as the prime suspect. While it’s true that Linnea has a drinking problem, Sharon is convinced someone else killed Molly. It could have been Madame Anya with her fortune-telling cards and tame crow. Before this gets solved, Sharon’s very life and her friendship with Linnea will be on the line.
You meet Anya’s husband, a handyman who works for the nearby center for the blind. The center itself is a depressing workshop kind of place where blind people, predominantly men, create brushes and brooms out of materials purchased by the state wholesale. Muller plays to the ridiculous stereotype about heightened senses of touch and hearing among blind people. I’m just trying to remember this was 1982. Of course, that memory creates a whole spate of depressing thoughts, chief among them is that the beliefs of most people haven’t changed that much since 1982. To her credit, there’s a blind character in the book who proves himself to be quite capable. This is a short, fun mystery that involves crime and blackmail--all in plain sight, so to speak.
You meet Anya’s husband, a handyman who works for the nearby center for the blind. The center itself is a depressing workshop kind of place where blind people, predominantly men, create brushes and brooms out of materials purchased by the state wholesale. Muller plays to the ridiculous stereotype about heightened senses of touch and hearing among blind people. I’m just trying to remember this was 1982. Of course, that memory creates a whole spate of depressing thoughts, chief among them is that the beliefs of most people haven’t changed that much since 1982. To her credit, there’s a blind character in the book who proves himself to be quite capable. This is a short, fun mystery that involves crime and blackmail--all in plain sight, so to speak.