[Subdue] Back to the Garden - Laurie R. King - 3*

[Robin P]

I love the series this author writes on Sherlock Holmes and Mary Russell. I read one of her contemporary books and it was ok, and I feel the same about this one. A skeleton is found under a statue at an estate that was the site of a commune for 5 years when the statue was erected. The story is told by going back and forth between "Then" and "Now". I found that distracting. As someone who was young in the hippie era, I felt the inhabitants of the commune were stereotypes, and the murder solution was farfetched. I liked the detective, Raquel, who has already been taken off her regular position because of some irregularity and is at risk of being removed from the San Francisco Police Department entirely. I wonder if this is supposed to be the start of a series where Raquel becomes a private detective. Toward the beginning of the book, we learn that Raquel was brilliant but not good at working with people. So she takes on the study of people and becomes unusually good at reading small signs and emotions. I'm not sure it works that way. I seem to have a lot of complaints, but overall it was fine as a mystery, just nothing special.