Review of Kate Wilhelm's DEATH QUALIFIED
Alayne McGregor
DEATH QUALIFIED: A MYSTERY OF CHAOS
by Kate Wilhelm
reviewed by Alayne McGregor
At an anonymous university, a maintenance man named Tom
has awakened to the fact that he is being drugged to prevent
him from revealing -- what?
In a small town in Oregon, Nell Kendricks hears that
her husband Lucas, missing without explanation for more than
six years, has reappeared and is coming to see her and their
children. Will he threaten their lives?
In Phoenix, Arizona, Barbara Holloway is about to leave
another dead-end job when her father calls to say he needs
her and her skills as a lawyer. Barbara left the law when
she became sickened by legal compromises and plea-bargaining;
now her father needs her back to defend Nell against the charge
of murdering Lucas.
But, as Barbara investigates the case, she discovers
much more than a simple shooting.
That applies to the book, as well. In what's ostensibly
a murder mystery, Wilhelm uses Mandelbrot sets and chaos theory
both as an integral part of the mystery and as a metaphor for
much of what happens in the story. Unexpected perturbations from
tiny events, similar patterns showing up as one goes to finer
and finer detail: this also applies to the plot and characters
in this novel.
It's not a perfect analogy; Wilhelm has to compromise this
with the strict structure of a mystery. But it works quite well
and produces an engrossing book with interesting and believable
characters, an intriguing plot (if slightly unbelievable in spots),
and a mystery that I wasn't able to solve until shortly before the
end of the book.
Wilhelm was first and best known as a science fiction writer;
however, in the last few years she has concentrated more on
mysteries and mainstream novels. In _Death Qualified_, she has
produced a well-done combination of both.
%T Death Qualified: A Mystery of Chaos
%A Kate Wilhelm
%C New York
%D 1991
%I St. Martin's Press
%O hardcover, US$22.95
%G ISBN 0-312-05853-5
%P 438pp
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Alayne McGregor
ala...@gandalf.ca