cover image A Tiger's Heart

A Tiger's Heart

Lauren Wright Douglas. Naiad Press, $9.95 (240pp) ISBN 978-1-56280-018-5

In her fourth adventure, Canadian lesbian PI Caitlin Reece catches up with a couple of her high-school classmates, Jonna Rowan and Kirk Ratliffe. Jonna calls and begs Caitlin to meet her, saying she fears for her life. But Caitlin is met not by Jonna but by her 10-year-old daughter, Jory, who explains that Kirk, her father, murdered her mother in a motel room. Jory wants Caitlin to find and kill Kirk. The police, however, say that Jonna's body is not at the motel and that Jory's account has ``a lot of inconsistencies.'' Jory sticks resolutely to her story, but then, she also claims that she once saw a UFO. A row of scars on Jory's back, together with some digging into the recent past, indicate to Caitlin that neither Kirk nor Jonna qualifies as a model parent. With the help of Gray Ng (a psychic friend), Francis the Ferret (a computer database-cracker) and Lester (a photographer and general helper), she makes real headway on the case--until Jory herself disappears. Neither Douglas's ( The Daughters of Artemis ) political message nor her dip into spiritualism blunts the intensity of this effective mystery as Caitlin probes the lives of former acquaintances and chases through a rugged British Columbian winter. (Oct.)