To Play the Fool

The Edgar-award winning author of A Grave Talent returns with Kate Martinelli in a story of the San Francisco homeless and Brother Erasmus, a leader who brings joy into desolate lives--and could also be a murderer.

Like the holy fools whose purposes frame her latest modern mystery, King practices her own magic here, conjuring up, after a slowish start, an indelibly affecting narrative from unexpected material. The murder and botched cremation of a homeless man in Golden Gate Park draws police detective Kate Martinelli, introduced in the 1993 Edgar-winning A Grave Talent, into the world of San Francisco's homeless, whose views of reality differ radically from those of the police. Foremost in this cast is Brother Erasmus, a widely respected monk-like figure, part minister and part mime, who speaks only in quotations. Frustrated in trying to interview Erasmus, Kate gradually connects him to the "cultivated lunacy" of a modern Fools' movement which, begun in late-1960s England, disintegrated 15 years later in violence and death. As Erasmus becomes the focus of Kate's official suspicion and personal interest, she enlists, among others, the dean of the Graduate Theological Union at UC-Berkeley and her own invalid female lover, a psychotherapist, to help uncover Erasmus's identity and tragic past. The murder of a homeless woman, whose fitful, articulate intelligence is deftly captured here, brings fresh urgency to the case. The solution makes sure, inevitable sense in both the mundane and spiritual realms that King so thoroughly charts in this moving tale.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

San Francisco detective Kate Martinelli strays from the stereotypical path of policewoman. As an openly lesbian and much-publicized heroine, Kate returns to her job facing a difficult case: street person Brother Erasmus, suspect in the murder of a homeless man, communicates entirely by way of literary quotations. The author presents her homeless characters with honesty and compassion, much in the way she describes the relationship between Kate and her lover or her police partner, Al. A fitting and well-done sequel to the award-winning A Grave Talent (LJ 1/93).
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

King's latest once again features gay San Francisco cop Kate Martinelli, this time juggling her lover Lee's paraplegia--the result of Lee's involvement in an earlier case of Kate's--with the frustrating investigation of the death of a homeless man in Golden Gate Park. The key suspect in the murder seems to be the enigmatically charismatic Brother Erasmus, a gentle giant of a man who speaks in quotations and whose calm dignity is a beacon for San Francisco's down-and-outs. Kate's interest is piqued when she learns that Erasmus considers himself a Holy Fool, part of an obscure, semireligious order. In her efforts to learn more about the man and his background, Kate travels from the ivy towers of academe to the squalor of San Francisco's dingiest districts. King's sometimes pedantic prose worked better in The Beekeeper's Apprentice , but an inventive plot and strong characters make this story well worth reading. Emily Melton