THE CLAIRVOYANT COUNTESS

Another experiment by Miss Gilman, who has left Mrs. Pollifax for other female sleuths of certain years. Apple-cheeked Sister John (A Nun in the Closet, 1975) was simply a mild irritant; Madame Marina Karitska, an impoverished Russian countess who is also a psychic practicing ESP and TLC in a New York brownstone, is a garden-party bore. In a smattering of murder cases—one involving a family and a father gone berserk, another concerning a kind of voodoo and an Organization—Mme. Karitska assists Detective Pruden and along the way picks up two apprentices. Telepathetic, but then there's Mrs. Pollifax's following.