STRANGLED INTUITION by Claire Daniels is certainly more apropos in its title to the inherent theme of the story than most readers might initially suspect.  And that is a good thing, for the more a book’s title resonate the book’s content, the greater the possibility the book being worth the reader’s time.  More on that later.  As for right now, the story…

Cally Lazar works as a medical intuitive.  Her practice is energetic healing.  When the story opens, she is treating May North, a boisterous eccentric, whom she met by way of her brother York, a martial arts instructor from whom May was taking classes. For Cally, there was no ‘not-liking’ this woman, making it an easy thing to accept the invitation to May’s house party later that night.  York was attending.  She had nothing else on her schedule.  And, personally, May North was not a character she could not avoid – nor did she seek to.

Cally attends, in the company of her brother York (protector and confidant) where she is introduced to an array of additional characters: May’s family, borders, and neighbors -- all whom become suspects, including Cally and York themselves, when May North is murdered.

The police in the city of Mostaza , though, are fumblers.  Cally’s contemptuous friend and fellow lawyer, Warren Kapp, views Cally as the only one who can solve the crime and bring the killer to the justice.  She did it once before; there was no reason, through her innate intuitive abilities, that she cannot do the same again. Reluctantly, Cally agrees.

STRANGLED INTUITION, the title itself, speaks two things to a reader going into this story: the method of the murder (May North is strangled) and the method of the deduction (the intuition of Cally Lazar).  However, carrying those two words even further, there is an angle very subtlety portrayed.  Cally Lazar’s intuition plays no part in the deduction of the crime.  It is “strangled”, so to speak, from any effective use. It seems rather irrelevant.  Cally sees the auras of the suspects, but they tell her nothing beyond immediate feelings expressed.  How she sees these auras is something I wish had been explained.  It is good old-fashioned detective work, the same she renounces as being without, that exposes the killer.  It is the physical exercise of physiognomy she employs to lead her to the mystery’s denouement.

Is this bad?  No.  It’s just different.  As a story, STRANGLED INTUITION is a very entertaining piece.  As a mystery, it ranks just above routine.  (Neither Miss Marple, Hercule Poirot or Sherlock Holmes have anything to fear from Cally Lazar in the next detective Olympics).  Though successful in the pursuit, she still exhibits herself as a novice.  And that, rightly so, is part of her charm.

There is no pretence in Cally Lazar.  She is no superhuman exhibition of perfection, where only the perfect personification of evil could bring her threat.  She is a unique character I enjoyed reading.  She is no detective, which she readily admits; she just manages to continue poking around until the bad guy inevitably plays his hand.

Such is a characteristic one can easily draw parallels to in the popular old television shows “Murder She Wrote” & “Diagnosis Murder”.  Cally Lazar and her set of characters fit into that mold well.  Claire Daniels has done well in filling her story with unique characters, granting an array of suspects to the reader’s mind.  The drawback to that is too many of them are not fleshed out well enough to give them identities of their own.

While I cannot say I would go out to the bookstore and pick up my own reserved copy of the next book in the series – I might, who knows  -- I certainly would read through a second adventure of Cally Lazar if it passed my way.    It is not Arthur Conan Doyle or Agatha Christie, as so few writing in contemporary literary mysteries are, but it is still an entertaining read with which I found myself happy.  If you enjoy the “Murder She Wrote/Diagnosis Murder” approach to mysteries and characterizations, you will definitely enjoy Cally Lazar in STRANGLED INTUITION.  Flesh out the characters a bit more, and who knows?  Cally Lazar could follow Dick Van Dyke and Angela Lansberry onto the mystery-lover’s small screen.