Strong Spirits

Daisy Gumm Majesty Mystery #1

by Alice Duncan

It's the 1920s and Daisy Gumm Majesty is doing her part to support her family as a medium by holding séances and interpreting tarot cards for the rich and famous.

When the wealthy Mrs. Kincaid comes to Daisy to help solve her husband's disappearance, Detective Sam Rotondo isn't far behind.

Sam isn't fooled by Daisy's choice of "vocation" and blackmails her into spying on the Kincaids.

Then Daisy reads Sam's cards... and the tables turn.

Genres: Mystery, Historical Fiction, Cozy Mystery, Fiction, Historical, Cozy, Historical Mystery

320 pages, Kindle Edition

First published February 1, 2003

About the author

Also writes as Emma Craig, Rachel Wilson, Anne Robins and wrote two books under the name of Jon Sharpe (Pecos Belle Brigade and California Crusader).

Reviews

[Charles Daniel · Rating 5 out of 5]

A Classical Styled Mystery in the Mold of Mary Reinhardt and Agatha Christie.

I don't read many mystery novels--in comparison to the number of books of the Sciences, Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror genres, at the least. That said, I believe Alice Duncan may become one of my favored authors. Her books will be sharing shelf space with the likes of Elizabeth Moon, Mercedes Lackey, Robin Hobb, Isaac Asimov, H. Beam Piper, John Ringo, David Drake, Eric Flint, Robert A Heinlein and a host of others of their tribe. I believe that they good and fitting company for her.

Alice Duncan's characters, especially her prime character--Daisy Gumm Majesty, seem like genuine people she describes from having met and known for many years. They are complex, smart, human (in both their strengths and their foibles), witty and thoroughly engaging. While reading this novel, I could easily see all the characters in my imagination and hear their voices in their dialogue.

In short, I loved this book. The pacing of the story may feel slow, but the characters fully developed and and all the clues to the mystery are provided to the reader before the reveal. I had the broad strokes of the who, what, and when of the crime figured out before Daisy Gumm Majesty lays it all out for Detective Rotondo. It must be noted, it is not lack of wit or insight which keeps Detective Rotondo from finding the culprits without Mrs. Majority's aid, but his jaded and overly suspicious nature which makes his focus on a particular suspect premature and too fixed to admit his own fallibility.

If you like Agatha Christie's and Mary Reinhardt's writing, read this book. I believe you will like it too.

[April Terry · Rating 2 out of 5]

I loved the setting of this book. It reminded me of the things that a friend told me about her growing up in Pasadena back in the day when Pasadena was "high society." I loved the characters in the book as well. Daisy Gumm is a great character and the surrounding characters are just as fun.

However, what I didn't like about this book is the was it constantly and annoyingly diverged from the storyline. If it wasn't the main character diverging, it was someone else. In one scene, a character returns ready to tell a story, but wait, we suddenly have to wait through the character getting "nursed" before we can hear the story.
I think more story and less diverging would really help this author. I also think that there were better ways for the story to progress. For instance, not once did this main character (who is a fake medium) use a seance or card reading to further along the story. That seems to me to be a missed opportunity.

For these reasons, I couldn't give it more than two stars.

[Una Tiers · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was a delight for two reasons. The first is Alice's exquisite descriptive ability. The second is her rich use of words, perfect for the kindle. I am going to think about using the prefix "un."

[Cheryl Roth · Rating 1 out of 5]

I can't even give it one star. Honestly, it was so boring and full of trite dribble that it drove me crazy. I kept trying to wade through the incredibly repetitive text hoping that the story would go somewhere, but by 1/3rd of the way in I found myself scanning and skipping through. Totally predictable and it never really went anywhere interesting. It's a waste of time and a real disappointment because the basic premise of the story could have been good.

[Quenya · Rating 2 out of 5]

The story and characters started to grow on me.

I wish I could give this book 2.5 stars as it wasn’t good but it was more than okay. It was okay enough that I am interested in reading the next book in the series. It is a very light mystery as the author spends the majority of the book setting the characters and situation up.

This is partially why it is not a 3 star book for something categorized as a mystery it is very light. It does make up for this by doing a great job of putting the reader/listener into the past. The descriptions and the nuanced way the author separate the classes in this book was done.

Daisy Gumm is one of the few characters that could walk the line between the upper crust and the working class. She is an interesting character though I must admit it took a while for me to actually like her. I do love all the supporting characters though.

The narrator did a fine job and as stated earlier I am interested in continuing the series.

[Betty · Rating 5 out of 5]

First book in the,series. Daisy lives in 1920 during and just after World War 1. She was married before her husband's was shipped overseas. He returns injured by mustard gas and leg damage. Daisy earns their living by holding seances and other spirited activities. In this book her best customer has problems and Daisy is called to give a seance. Daisy has to help solved a criminal matter. It is a tale of how the average person lived during the Roaring Twenties. Not really a mystery or a romance, elements of both are presented. No real violence and sex. A great read for a relaxing afternoon on a dismal day. I have the reminder of the series on my THE list

[Michelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’ve read quite a few of the books later on in the series and loved them. So I finally I’ve gone back and started from the beginning. I very much enjoyed meeting all of the characters I’ve come to know and love for the first time. And to learn more about how they met, their backgrounds and most especially the way Sam and Daisy hated each other on first meeting. Such a great series and I truly enjoyed the first mystery Daisy was involved in. Now on to book two!
I received this book for free from eBook Discovery. I voluntarily review this book. This is my honest review.

[Heather · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ding, ding, ding. We have a winner. The concept behind this mystery is very good. The writing is solid, the setting different and interesting, and the characters engaging enough that I would read the sequels. There are also some tantalizing little hints about how the plot will unfold in those sequels that make me curious enough to pay money for them. So well done, AD. Your strategy worked.

The writing could be a little tighter. The opening is really repetitive. Got it -- WWI sucked. Also, there really wasn't a mystery to speak of. We're never in doubt about what happened or who dunnit or anything like that. I kept waiting for a mystery, but one never showed up. So this is more of a character driven story -- I kept reading to find out what they'll do next, not to see how the mystery got solved.

So Cal residents will enjoy the setting -- vintage Pasadena.

[Jessie · Rating 3 out of 5]

The period after the Great War and Flu Pandemic and before the crash of Wall Street is a period of great turmoil and upheaval. Many people turned to spiritualists and mediums for comfort.

Daisy Gumm Majesty, the young wife of a war veteran crippled by mustard gas, supports her family through her fabricated talent for contacting the dead and reading Tarot cards.

If this sounds dreary and depressing .... it is not. Daisy's fresh take on the "lost generation" from the point of view of those who were too busy taking care of business to be lost is enchanting. Her mixed feelings about her spiritualist talents and the tantalizing hints of her future life are intriguing. A nice read.

[Elizabeth Olson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely endearing and linguistically spot-on mystery set in Pasadena, CA, just after World War I. Heroine Daisy finds herself having to support herself and her shell-shocked, mustard-gassed, cripple husband, so turns to the easiest, fastest money method she can think of: fake spiritualist to the rich. Oh, yeah, there's a mystery in there, too, and a pretty good one, but mostly it's a charming set piece.

[Argum · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fun little story but nothing really happened. Daisy is a young wife after the Great War in Pasadena. Her husband was gassed and thus she supports the family as a spiritualist putting her in wealthy homes. Some fishy business is happening at the bank and she gets involved to help police. No real mystery as it just kind of unfolds as a situation. Characters are sort of interesting, but very repititve. Light read but wont go back for more

[Andrea · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nice for what it is, 1920's cozy mysteries set in Pasadena. Daisy is a young woman with a young husband disabled in the war who makes a decent living holding seances and tarot card readings for the upper crust of Pasadena society. Along the way, she gets entangled in various family dramas and mysteries.

[Trisha · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good book to start a series with, the characters are interesting and fully formed. The author did a good job keeping all the characters true to their jobs (the detective actually kept quiet about the investigation!). All the conflict arose out of personalities or circumstances, not just because someone didn't want to say the one thing that would clear their name.

[Joanna · Rating 4 out of 5]

Just a nice relaxing read. There is a bit of a mystery but not one that Daisy is actively engaged in solving. This is the first of a series. I read the 6th one first and will try to read them all. I purchased this copy on my NOOK for $.99. Lots of typos.

[Jenny T. · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a sedate mystery set in Pasadena, CA, during the 1920's featuring Daisy Gumm Majesty, a spiritualist. Except for the historical aspects of this book and the differences between the rich & poor, I found the plot simplistic and dull.

[Judy · Rating 1 out of 5]

I don't start a book without finishing hoping it will get better before the end. I'm sorry to say, that was not the case with this one. Slow moving, not much story line, too many trivial details, makes it unworthy of my time. I can't imagine this in a series

[Jeannette · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a laugh out loud read with plenty of grins while solving the mystery.

[Martha Foster · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a delightful, fun read, though I agree with those who say there wasn’t much “mystery” in it. But that was more than made up for by the funny, spunky heroine Daisy, and her humorous, insightful stream-of-consciousness observations on her family, friends, clients, and 1920s Pasadena, California.

Daisy sort of accidentally landed in a career as a spiritualist, and now supports her family by reading cards and conducting seances for her wealthy clientele. It is interesting to witness her internal struggle with the changing morals of her time: Is spiritualism wrong? Not if you can help people by it. And anyway, she’s still a Christian, goes to church, and sings in the choir. Is divorce wrong? Not if you must rid yourself of an abusive, lecherous husband. How about women’s rights? She’s eager to vote for the first time, but these modern fashions! Women really should not wear their skirts so high, to just below the knee, or wear *gasp* hosiery! And what about homosexuality? She finds that confusing, but hey, her new-found chum Harold and his partner are great people, and she observes, “Shoot, life could be really interesting when you hung around with all sorts of different kinds of people.”

Most interesting is her take on her own profession, spiritualism. On the one hand, she knows she’s “conning” her clientele, because she fabricated this entire persona of “medium”, beginning when she first encountered a Ouija board at age ten, and adding to her acting repertoire since then. On the other hand, she sees what good she can do for people, comforting them by “contacting” their departed loved ones, especially those who died young in the Great War and the influenza epidemic.

And is spiritualism entirely a con? At one of her seances she notices, “I honestly felt some sort of new force in the room. ...Oddly enough, the force made me feel better. It was like a benevolent energy. I can’t really explain it, and I don’t expect anyone to believe me, but I swear that it might as well have been the spirit of Mrs. Lilley’s son arriving in order to console his mother.” And she comments later on, about her “spirit control”, Rolly: “I’ve always been grateful to Rolly for showing up in my life, even if I’d made him up in the first place. You never know about such things. Maybe I didn’t make him up. Maybe he made himself up.” I’m curious to see if this little internal conflict is continued or resolved in future books.

I’ll definitely read another in this series. Not only are the characters interesting and engaging, but the little historical details are enjoyable as well, such as Daisy’s struggle cranking up her old Model T, or the family sitting on their porch watching the lights blink on Mount Wilson where the telescope had been recently installed. “We’d sit out there at night sometimes and wonder what discoveries were being made. The Mount Wilson Telescope was the largest in the world, and we all liked to imagine what it was seeing.”

The book needed a bit of editing, and as mentioned, a bit more to the mystery, thus the 4 stars. But I’m hoping this is resolved in the next of the series, which I’ll be reading soon.

[Richard · Rating 4 out of 5]

The year is approximately 1920. Daisy Gumm, a firecracker of a young woman aged 20 or thereabouts, is married to Billy Majesty, who is recently back from the Great War, having been gassed and crippled, so he's confined to a wheelchair. They live with her parents, and Daisy works as a medium giving séances to rich folk. There is no pretense to the reader that she might actually believe any of what she does, and she's quite direct about how fraudulent the whole business is with her Ouija board and Tarot cards, and how gullible her wealthy clients are. (In that respect, the narrative seems to be that of an older Daisy, backward looking to her youth, from some decades down the line.)

The writing is very theatrical and fun throughout the book. I could see this possibly being turned into a rather drôle and engaging stage play. Daisy's first-person narration is so interesting and chatty, as well as pretty broad-minded for the time, that I barely noticed the plot takes nearly half the book to begin rolling—but it's full steam ahead in a breathless romp once things get cranked up. Daisy may be one of the most opinionated (in an amusing way) and magnificently chatty narrators I've ever run across. Heavens, how she's chatty. I really enjoyed the period setting: the Ford Model-T she has to crank to get started, the party-line telephone, discussion of new-fangled radio signal receiving sets, the observations about Pasadena... On and on.

This is the first book of a series and the edition I read is actually bundled with two further Daisy Gumm mysteries that I'll probably read in due course. The editing is quite fine and I think I spotted only a single typo. But curiously, even though the book's orthography makes use of em-dashes and accented letters—e.g., in the word “séance”, it doesn't use paired double quotes or proper apostrophes. Well, that just seemed odd, though no real harm done.

[Susan · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was annoying and difficult to finish. The narrator had an irritating habit of referring to herself by her surname: "As a Gumm...", "We Gumms...", "Gumms always...", "When you're a Gumm...". The story was rambling, repetitive, and took a long time to get to the point. Chapters would start out talking about one thing and veer off to another. For example, at one point, Daisy arrives at a client's home. Lavish descriptions with lots of adjectives about the house, the yard, the cars, the flowers, and the dog. Before you know it, she's talking about how she'd like a dog because it would keep her husband company. This leads to another several paragraphs repeating that her husband is in a wheelchair and how boring that is for him. (That gets mentioned in every chapter). She makes her way back to talking about different kinds of dogs, and how another character in the book is trying to get a dog registered to be recognized by the local kennel club before saying, "What am I doing talking about dogs?" Great question. If the narrator herself is wondering, image what the reader is feeling!
This was a tedious read, and I am unlikely to read more in the series. (I'm actually surprised that there was enough interest to write more books in this series.)

[Altivo Overo · Rating 4 out of 5]

I grew up on Dorothy Sayers, and while Daisy Gumm and Sam Rotondo are not the equals of Lord Peter, they are certainly amusing. Notice I didn't say anything about "peers" because I almost have some self respect.

Anyway, the setting in Pasadena of the 1920s is carried off well, including the fads and speech of the times. Some of the characters, such as Daisy's Aunt Vi and the wealthy scion Harold Kincaid, are quite likable.

The mystery is not a murder, but is easily puzzled out before the conclusion arrives. Altogether fun but fluffy to read.

[Deb · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rating this very high because it's so historically accurate - probably the reason others rate it low because they are not interested in historical fashion, cooking, cleaning, social history, the aftermath of the 'flu pandemic and the First WW, or how to start an old model T - but I sure am!

And in book 2 she says Daisy's father's family came from Auburn, MA! What's that all about?

[Ann Brookens · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book and tore through it in one sitting. Daisy is an interesting character with an unusual career. Her life is full of difficulties but she maintains a positive attitude while keeping the reader aware of her inner struggles. I fell in love with her and her family and can hardly wait to see what happens in book 2!

[Eileen Lynx · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very funny. Also fast paced and interesting.

[Kelly · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read Strong Spirits as part of my 2017 Read Harder Challenge, for the category "Read a Book that is Set Within 100 Miles of Your Location." Since I live in Pasadena and there are thousands of books set in and around Southern California, I decided to go hyper-local. And the best part of this book is its descriptions of Pasadena in the early 1920s. Duncan has done massive amounts of exacting research and she doesn't mind showing it off, like explaining that Throop College was renamed the California Institute of Technology two years before the events of the book take place. That kind of arcana might be overboard for some, but as a local I just ate it all up. She paints a vivid picture of early days in Pasadena, and I could picture the green lawns and graceful mansions on Orange Grove (now mostly condos -- nice condos, but condos, still) and the churches and banks dotting Colorado Avenue. It was fun to mentally compare the Pasadena I know to Daisy's.

As for the rest of the book, it wasn't entirely my thing. Daisy's narrative voice is very memorable and liberally spiked with 1920's slang, which I think is charming in small doses and overwhelming as used here. Daisy is also meant to be a sort of tell-you-like-it-is, tough-talking, no-nonsense dame, but for me she sometimes just seemed judgmental, bitchy and unpleasant. This all might work fine for some readers, it was just too much for me.

The actual mystery was more of a police investigation that Daisy kept poking her nose into. She "solved" it, but more on a hunch than any actual sleuthing. I would have liked to see a little bit more intrigue and build-up than "I just knew he did it" and "See, I told you!"

My final criticism is of the relationship between Daisy and Rotondo. There's some chemistry there, some "banter" back and forth (well, it's less banter and more bicker, but I see what Duncan was trying to do there), and even a scene where things get a little intimate between them (emotionally intimate, not physically). But Daisy is married to a veteran of World War I who is now confined to a wheelchair. And while I was sympathetic to Daisy's situation, I was uncomfortable with even the hints at something more than friendly professionalism in her relationship with the detective. It made me feel like Duncan is going to find a way to kill of Daisy's husband (who's pretty great, most of the time) to push her and the detective together.

[Kerry Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

Set in the 1920's Daisy, our main character, provides for her family by being a spiritualist. Daisy, her family and her friends and the inevitable problem(s) that arise...it is a cosy mystery series after all...makes me appreciate the time and consideration that Alice put in to developing the background and characters from the start.
Having had the pleasure to be asked to do a proof read of a number of later books in this series I am delighted to finally get back to the start of the series.
I received a free copy of this ebook from ebook discovery. This is my honest and freely given review.

[Viccy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Daisy Gumm is an accidental spiritualist. When she was ten, she pretended she could talk to the spirits and everyone believed her. She knows she is a fraud, but if rich people want to pay her to talk to the spirits, who is she to stop them? Daisy gets mixed up with the Kincaids, a rich banking family in Pasadena, California. Daisy is supporting herself and her husband, Billy, badly injured in World War I, along with her mother and father and her Aunt Vi. Life is not easy for a girl trying to earn a living, especially when she gets caught up in bank fraud and murder. Detective Sam Rotondo thinks Daisy knows more than she is letting on. The opening entry in a delightful series of cozy mysteries, set in the Roaring Twenties.

[Karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Daisy Gumm is a self made spiritualist in Pasadena, Calif. just after WW1. Her husband is physically and mentally damaged and they are living with her Mom & Dad and Aunt Vi.

Daisy's main benefactor is Mrs Kinkaid. Mr. Kinkaid is in a wheelchair but that doesn't keep him from chasing the female staff. Rumors of problems at the bank he runs are rampant and then he disappears one night. Has he absconded without his wheelchair or was he attacked by his horse wrangler who is also missing?

First novel trouble includes telling not showing and constant repetition. I liked the characters and it has a nice plot.

I own a copy.

[Sallie · Rating 1 out of 5]

I'm on about pg 80 something, but I just don't care about the main character, her husband or anyone else in this book, so I've decided to stop now instead of going on and hoping it gets better. When you really don't like the main character, it's hard to go on with a book.

It was free download to my NOOK, and I have the next in the series, but I doubt I'll try that one at all.

Too many great books out there to read to waste more time on this one.

I just went back to change my ratings to one start. It really didn't deserve 2.

[Kim · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a very nice read. The setting is late WW1....the main character (Daisy) is a very young spiritualist/medium who is trying to help support her family including her husband who was hurt in the war. I really enjoyed the authors references to the time period. I will read more about Daisy Gumm, to be sure!