An Uncertain Currency

Rating:
Summary: An Uncertain Currency
Review: A gentle psychic detective, a vicious murderer. A small town, a larger mystery. Love, lust, intrigue and mysticism make for a compelling read. An Uncertain Currency held my attention from start to finish.

Rating:
Summary: Strong meat
Review: I really enjoyed this book. You not only get a great mystery, you get a real character study of the detective (actually not a professional), so the tale has meat. I live in a North Carolina town and know these small towns he's talking about well. The author has nailed them and the folks that people them. The book has a great premise too-a detective who can read minds unless he's abusing his powers with greed. This book is just how mysteries deserve to be written--strong characters and setting, inventive plot, real depth of characterization. The book was recommended by a friend, and I'm glad it was. I highly recommend it too.

Rating:
Summary: Unputdownable!
Review: I was hooked right from the start. An unputdownable book with alsorts of twists and turns that kept this reader engrossed. I am sure that had I read this on a plane, I would have arrived without even knowing I had taken off!

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Summary: Don Ameche + Amazing Kreskin + In the Heat of the Night
Review: Imagine that Cesar Romero has psychic powers and that he, instead of Virgil Tibbs/Sidney Poitier, has been asked to help a Southern police department solve a murder case. Mario Castigliani is the handsome but nearly broke clairvoyant who has brought his mind reading act to Floraville, Georgia. Beaufort Tyler the personable young police chief enlists his aid to look into the apparent suicide of a local civil rights pioneer and union activist who seems to have hung himself. "Seems to" because his death could be linked to labor unrest at the powerful town mill, to the recent release from prison of a rabid racist, even to the similar hanging death of the prior chief of police.

The mystery though is simply the point of departure for a richly textured fish-out-of-water story, as Castigliani brings his cosmopolitan, continental sensibilities and his psychic gift to bear on this sleepy Southern burgh. The book is at it's best when he's interacting with the locals and attempting to understand their lives, an understanding made easier by his ability to read their thoughts. Less effective are the continuing flashbacks to his earlier life in Italy and on the stage. This all could be better handled in one longer passage early on, which would help the narrative flow of the novel.

At any rate, Mario Castigliani and Beau Tyler make an agreeable, if unlikely, team and the authors populate the town with plenty of interesting characters, some comic, others tragic. They also make it easy to suspend disbelief about Mario's paranormal powers, mostly treating him as hypersensitive to the thoughts of others, rather than having him resort to all kinds of mental pyrotechnics. Likewise, they show the many mundane tricks he uses to beguile his audience, which makes for one of the most absorbing sections of the book. By not pushing the psychic angle too hard, they keep the focus on the characters and deliver a murder mystery with a crafty twist.

GRADE : B

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Summary: The truth may be uncertain, but this book is no counterfeit!
Review: Just out of four years in an Ivy League English department barracks, my reading eye is more than a little critical. In fact, I find it's hard to enjoy reading at all anymore.

That's why I'm so grateful for this book... and grateful for the way it swept me up into itself and kept me from doing anything else until I had scanned its last page, closed it, and put it down with a sigh.

In a sleepy Southern town, where no one's all good, but only one is bad enough to kill, my mind was filled with vivid, strangely intertwining stories and the clear contours of a few strong individuals.

Frankly, this was the first book I read for pleasure since I graduated last spring. Since it reminded me of how much fun a good book can be, I don't think it will be my last.

But exactly WHY is it so good? Even with my long, hard training in literary dissection, I'd have to say that good art's the biggest mystery. You'll just have to read it for yourself.

Rating:
Summary: AN IMMENSE RED
Review: Mario Castigiani is a internationally accredited Psychic. He is called into action to help find a murderer.

Beafort Tyler, the police chief of Floraville, Georgia calls upon Mario to help him prove that an old black man named Roy Washington (who was a local celebrity from the civil rights days) was murdered and not a suicide as the coroner thinks. Roy was found hanging in his kitchen. Does Roy's death have any thing to do with the hanging of Chief Tyler's predecessor, Chief Rutherford Kendall? He was also found hanging, but police officers usually use their weapons.

AN UNCERTAIN CURRENCY is exquisitely written, with really entertaining and amiable characters, and a plot that will hold you enraptured all the way to theclimatic ending.

AN UNCERTAIN CURRENCY has everything that an immense book should have, homicide, mystery, affection, eroticism, psychological tension, and racial discrimination all rolled into a nice tight mix.

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Summary: Technical Tour de Force or Lyrical Masterpiece?
Review: One summer when I was staying with friends in Milan, a somewhat preposterous argument broke out, after a few too many Splugens on the balcony, over whether Milan's Duomo was a "technical tour de force" or a "lyrical masterpiece." After numerous noise complaints from the neighbors, and several threats of overt violence, we decided in solidarity that the Duomo was both a lyrical masterpiece and a technical tour de force. Then the cops showed up. An Uncertain Currency, the new mystery thriller by Clyde Lynwood Sawyer, Jr. and Frances Witlin, integrates much of the same lyrical eloquence and technical mastery that would seem to characterize the infamous Duomo. Not only is this a novel of captivating intrigue but, almost as importantly, not once, at any time or at any place, do any of the characters utter the phrase "Who knew?" The cops call on Mario Castigliani, a down-and-out Italian clairvoyant performing artist, to help solve a murder in a small town in Georgia. If you love a good mystery, you must get your hands on this book. I loved it, even without drinking a bunch of Splugens before I read it.

Rating:
Summary: What mystery?
Review: This is an interesting novel about Mario Catigliani, a traveling Italian psychic who performs and uses his ability for money. He is recruited by the police chief in a small Southern town to help solve a suicide that the chief thinks is murder. I have to pause here and say that this novel is not interesting because it's an intriguing mystery, but because of the details of Mario's life. I've always been fascinated by the way a good author can completely invent a person out of thin air. How do they make up a real person (Mario does seem so real) who has thoughts, dreams, fear, selfishness, love, all the things that make people real? In any case, like I said, I was not curious about whodunnit, and for this to be a good mystery, I should have been. The mystery was almost an aside in this book, just something for the characters to be doing so they weren't just sitting around. The real story is the story of Mario's life. And that's what made this book good. ?

Rating:
Summary: What mystery?
Review: This is an interesting novel about Mario Catigliani, a traveling Italian psychic who performs and uses his ability for money. He is recruited by the police chief in a small Southern town to help solve a suicide that the chief thinks is murder. I have to pause here and say that this novel is not interesting because it's an intriguing mystery, but because of the details of Mario's life. I've always been fascinated by the way a good author can completely invent a person out of thin air. How do they make up a real person (Mario does seem so real) who has thoughts, dreams, fear, selfishness, love, all the things that make people real? In any case, like I said, I was not curious about whodunnit, and for this to be a good mystery, I should have been. The mystery was almost an aside in this book, just something for the characters to be doing so they weren't just sitting around. The real story is the story of Mario's life. And that's what made this book good.  

Rating:
Summary: An Uncertain Currency is a Certain Success!
Review: When Mario was 12 the Sight (la Lucia) first came to him at an archaeological dig near his home in Perugia, Italy & his childhood was changed, even his path in life.

Now, he is an Internationally Acclaimed Psychic & an aging, lonely Seer in a frayed silk suit, washed up in a sleepy Southern town where he is about to perform for the locals. The night he arrives one of the town's best beloved & larger-than-life characters is found dangling from a rope in his home, his Bible open at the page on which could be construed his suicide note.

Floraville's young police chief, borne of the warring farmlands & mill owners, an ex-mill worker himself, has nothing to lose & everything to gain when he hires on Mario to assist in solving what he knows & can't yet prove, to be a murder.

I thoroughly enjoyed the insights la Lucia offers Mario, like some puckish imp whispering in his ear all the silent comments unwary people think while their mouths utter utterly different words! & then Mario curses la Lucia & away she goes & he's left depending on his own wits.

An Uncertain Currency is a rare feast of memories, depravity, humor & redemption. Great gift material for those who love a thoughtful mystery with a twist! For my full review & eInterview with Clyde Lynwood Sawyer, do check out: [my website].