Mumbo Jumbo - Hardcover

Knight, Kathryn Lasky

3.28

18 ratings by Goodreads

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0671684485 ISBN 13: 9780671684488

Publisher: Summit Books, 1991

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Illustrator Calista Jacobs locks horns with a free-love New Age cult near the Arizona site of her husband's murder when she reluctantly returns there with her archaeologist beau and her son

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From Publishers Weekly:

This third book featuring Cambridge, Mass., children's book illustrator Calista Jacobs ( Mortal Words ) is a disappointment. With ambivalent feelings, Calista joins her son, Charley, and her lover, archeologist Archie Baldwin, in Arizona, near the site where her husband died of a rattlesnake bite. Part of Archie's dig is on land owned by a New Age cult based near the town of Red Forks and headed by Pahata Ra, who claims to be the reincarnation of a 65,000-year-old woman from the Russian steppes. The dig has been interrupted, however, by an all-out search for Tonk Cullen, mayor of Red Forks, and Claudie Perkins, who owns most of the water rights to the area. When Calista recognizes Pahata as her old college roommate, she suspects foul play, a fear magnified when Charley is abducted by helicopter and dumped in the desert. Calista must face her former roommate, with whom she never got along, and brave the treacherous Arizona environment to rescue Charley and Tonk and to find out what happened to Claudie. By taking Calista out of her element and thus forgoing the exquisite observations on art that made the former books so interesting, Knight is left with nothing but an outlandish plot.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews:

When children's book illustrator Calista Jacobs (Trace Elements, Mortal Words) joins brilliant archaeologist/lover Archie and her teen-aged son Charley at a Red Forks, Arizona, dig, the two are grumpy: a bunch of New Agers have bought up vast acreage, dubbed it ``Rancho Radiance,'' and now refuse to let them ``disturb'' the spirits of the ancients with research trenches. Moreover, two longtime Red Forks residents--elderly Mayor Tonk and independent oldster Claudie--have wandered off and may be dead. Then Calista recognizes the New Age sect leader, Pahata Ra, as her former Bryn Mawr roommate--the bed-hopping Harriet Levine. What's her scam? Before you can say ``bilk a widow,'' Charley finds Tonk, the two are kidnapped, and Calista and Archie are in pursuit.... Amusing stuff that wears thin very quickly with its predictable targets--licentious swamis, the pay-and-pray converts, etc.--and Calista and Charley, previously notable for their intelligence and exuberance, are awfully subdued here, though Charley still charms. -- Copyright �1991, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

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