Death in the Twelfth House: Where Neptune Rules by Mitchell Scott Lewis

Reviewed by Jeanne

The death of one aging rock star wasn’t unusual.  Two might be deemed coincidence.  But when a third is found, the police find themselves on the hot seat.  The most recently departed was Freddie Finger, an egotistical womanizer who had managed to alienate a good number of his fellow musicians and business people, which means there are no end of suspects. 

One person who is definitely not happy with the police investigation is model/actress Vivian Younger, whose interest in the case is personal:  Freddie was her father.  She has the money and the connections to be a major thorn in the investigation’s side, so the lead investigator makes no objection when she wants to  hire astrologer David Lowell.  Lowell has worked with the police before, and Inspector Roland has seen enough to think the astrologer might be on to something.  At the very least, Lowell is discrete and should keep the daughter occupied so the department can investigate in relative peace. Since Lowell is also independently wealthy with his own investigative resources, he can actually be useful to the police as well.

Death in the Twelfth House is the second in Mitchell Scott Lewis' “Starlight Detective Agency Mystery” series, but you need not have read the first to enjoy this one.  While I enjoyed the first book, there were a few rough edges in some of the writing. (You can read the full review here.) This second book is smoother, less self-conscious.  Minor characters aren’t over-explained, for one thing.  The plotting is good and the characters are a bit better developed this time around. Sarah his office assistant gets a bit of a chance to shine, even though she's a bit of a skeptic  Lowell is much less stiff  and even uses contractions on a more regular basis.

 As before, Lowell explains a lot about charts while using concrete examples so that you really don’t have to know anything about astrology to follow along. He makes it all sound fascinating and even easy.  This book does an especially good job of showing how interpretation makes the difference in a reading. There are nuances that take a trained eye to sort out, and to not leap to the easy conclusions, just as a meteorologist needs to know his own specific location to better predict weather based on readings. Lowell's also just a bit less opinionated, or more accurately less apt to lecture people on his views.  This can be seen as either a plus or a minus, depending on one’s politics. 

Personally, I’d had my doubts about this second book because of the rock and roll theme.  It’s not that I have anything against rock and roll or the music business, but I’ve both read and seen this scenario  and it’s just not something that particularly interested me as a plot setting.  I think in part it’s because it seems to be that the authors are sometimes trying to get a sort of reflected glamor among the rich and famous while editorializing about the lifestyle.  Despite Freddie being a sort of stereotypical rock star with the angry ex-wives and band mates, I never felt the story was too tawdry or that the author was using the setting to punch up a weak plot.

Lewis is a professional astrologer who also worked in the music business.   His website is Mitchastro.com.  In addition to information about the books, he also posts a monthly astrological newsletter.

If you have an interest in astrology that goes beyond the daily horoscope in the paper or you like cozy mysteries with a bit of an edge, you might give this series a try!

Murder in the 11th House by Mitchell Scott Lewis

Reviewed by Jeanne

Sometimes I pick up a book because it has an intriguing title, like I Still Miss My Man, But My Aim Is Getting Better.  Sometimes it’s because I’ve heard so much about an author.  Sometimes it’s because of the exotic locale.  Sometimes it’s because there’s a cat on the cover.

This time it was because the premise sounded so good:  a detective who solves cases based on astrological charts.  Oh, I’d read the occasional tea leaf mystery or ghostly intervention but this one seemed to be a relatively serious book done by a professional astrologer --and one who specializes in economic astrology at that.

David Lowell is an extremely wealthy man who earned his money by investing according to the stars.  He has a network of experts to handle most situations, a car with an amazing sensory component, and strong opinions on things from politics to the proper way to drink beer. He’s also a martial arts enthusiast.  Lowell’s  lawyer daughter, Melinda, calls on her father to help her out with a difficult case.  She has a client accused of murdering a judge.  Jonny is a bartender with a chip on her shoulder and an abrasive manner which doesn’t endear her to a lot of people.  It certainly didn’t endear her to the judge, and Jonny responded with a widely reported threat.  Even though there’s a lot of circumstantial evidence, Melinda feels Jonny is innocent.  She just needs some way to prove it, and she thinks her father’s unorthodox methods might be just the way to do it. 

If you think astrology is a lot of hooey, then this won’t be a book you’ll enjoy in the least.  Lowell uses his charts to do everything from picking a stock to picking a suspect.  If on the other hand, you don’t think astrology is any farther out than the latest economic theories, you may well enjoy this.  Lowell is sort of a cross between a couple of mystery heroes:  his lecturing and fastidiousness reminds me of Nero Wolfe, while his leaps into action are more Jack Reacher.  Author  Lewis likes to ride his own hobbyhorses, so to speak, and one of the subplots involves the evils of lottery tickets. He also has a few interesting observations via his characters on current events. Agree or not, he gives his readers something to think about. I like that in a book.

While the book would have benefited from a bit more editorial intervention to smooth out some of the clunky writing, I still had fun reading it. I particularly liked the way that Lowell tries to explain astrology.  Most light mysteries with “themes” leave me wondering just how much the author really knows about the subject since some of the explanations sound as if the author had just looked up the answer on Wikipedia. You will have no doubt that Lewis knows his astrology, and that he sees it as a science like weather forecasting or earthquake prediction.

A second book in the series, Death in the 12th House, is scheduled for November, 2012.  Aging rockers are meeting untimely ends, so David Lowell is called in to see if the astrological stars can solve the rock star murders. I'm sure it's not a coincidence that Michael Scott Lewis is also a musician who has some insider cred.

If you’re intrigued, Lewis has his own website where you can read some of his writing about astrology, predictions, and watch videos of interviews.  The site is www.mitchastro.com.