Julia Bonatti is a professional astrologer, and if you don't agree with astrology, treat this as another craft- centred mystery. THE MADNESS OF MERCURY seems to inspire chaos and change after Julia gives a reading for a client at home. Normally she works from her own premises, but this lady client Evandra Gamble has broken a hip. The senior is worried about her carer Dorothy, a niece, taking advantage of herself and her sister. But it's a non-family member who falls to his death from the clifftop garden overlooking the Golden Gate Bridge. Luis the gardener is inexplicably no more.

Julia tells us about herself; she has a Masters Degree but when her fiancé was killed in a car accident she gave up on life for a time. Gradually she resumed business with a column about astrology in a local paper and select clients. She made a friend, Gale, in a mystic bookstore while studying astrology. Julia has a black cat called Wizard and no plans for the holidays. Oh, and Mercury is retrograde and it's the last quarter of the moon, so wouldn't you know something weird would happen. That's no excuse for a creepy man to send her malicious e-mails and phone messages about burning witches.

I enjoyed reading about San Francisco during December and various preparations for Christmas. The wide variety of people and lifestyles here has drawn a cultist leader who whips up supporters to protest against any lifestyle they don't approve of, including astrology. Julia soon feels that she and Gale are at risk from the intimidating cult followers, even without the possibility of Luis's death being murder, as the elderly - perhaps confused - Evandra maintains.

If you would like to devour the advice about planets in opposing houses, dodgy transits and birth charts, you'll find plenty to interest you in Connie Di Marco's engaging book. Or you can concentrate on the dramatic crime story and have a chuckle at the medium whose life turns upside down due to unforeseen circumstances. THE MADNESS OF MERCURY is lively and entertaining, well-researched with a great sense of place. A smart read.

Book Summary

San Francisco astrologer Julia Bonatti's life is turned upside down when she becomes the target of the city's newest cult leader, Reverend Roy of the Prophet's Tabernacle. Driven out of her apartment in the midst of a disastrous Mercury retrograde period, she takes shelter with a client who's caring for two elderly aunts. One aunt appears stricken with dementia and the other has fallen under the spell of the Reverend Roy. To add to the confusion, a young man claiming to be a long lost nephew arrives. The longer he stays, the more dangerous things become. Is the young man truly a member of the family? Can astrology confirm that? Julia's not sure, but one thing she does know is that Mercury wasn't merely the messenger of the gods—he was a trickster and a liar as well.