The Book Whisperer Reviews A Tarot Card Mystery

I received a copy of The Hierophant Card: A Tarot Mystery by Bevan Atkinson from BookTrib. What follows is my unbiased review of The Hierophant Card. Atkinson’s goal is to write twenty-two books based on tarot cards; The Hierophant Card is book six. The fact that The Hierophant Card is book six puts me at a disadvantage in that the characters have already been established. Still, one can read and follow The Hierophant Card without having read the previous books. Perhaps the greater challenge is my having no knowledge of tarot cards and their meanings.

Xana Bard, the tarot reader and narrator, does explain the meaning of cards as the need arises. The Hierophant Card begins with a frantic call from Thalia Thalassos who has a friend, Yolanda, in common with Xana. Yolanda works with Thalia and has suggested that Thalia call Xana to get a tarot card reading.

Thalia has been accused of murdering her husband and has become erratic and frantic. Since Thalia works with Yolanda and is getting no work done, Yolanda thinks Xana may be able to calm Thalia.

Even when the two meet in person, readers encounter a great deal of sputtering and disbelief that the tarot reading will help Thalia. Still, Xana becomes involved in the story and having inserted herself into it also discovers other dodgy characters.

Xana lives in a lovely home overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Because of a wrongful dismissal from a large tech company, Xana received a hefty settlement and she also inherited a goodly sum of money when her father died. Thus, she no longer works, but gives free tarot readings and becomes involved in volunteer work and the occasional murder mystery.

Another important character in Xana’s life is her live-in boyfriend, Thorne Cadogan Ardall, who lives in her basement apartment. Xana describes Thorne as “a six-foot-eight, two-hundred-sixty-pound human.” Thorne does work for clients who pay in cash and he converts the money into gold wafers which he keeps in a money-bin. Thus, Thorne has “no workman’s compensation deductions, income tax withholding, or social security.”

While Thalia loudly contends that she has not tried to murder her husband, he is in intensive care in the hospital after falling off his horse during the Tevis Cup, a one-hundred-mile horse race held over twenty-four hours. I should mention at this point that Thalia’s husband, Don, is having an affair with a married woman, also in the horse race.

In order to get to the bottom of the story, Xana goes with Thalia to the hospital to see Don. There, Xana sees Bryce Gilbertson, a nurse on the ward. Xana, however, has an uneasy feeling about Bryce.

Readers, too, quickly find reasons to dislike and distrust nurse Gilbertson. For one thing, he has a disgusting habit of picking his ear for wax, yes, his ear. Gilbertson is sneaky and causes Xana’s hackles to rise although she cannot quite determine why.

The plot thickens, so to speak, when Xana’s mom has a heart attack on the golf course when Xana is playing with her mom and two others. Rushed to the hospital, Xana’s mom is recovering when Xana sees Bryce Gilbertson on the floor. She feels her dread meter rising and determines that she and her siblings must keep an eye on their mother at all times while she is in the hospital.

The Hierophant Card continues to twist and turn as complications arise. Readers wonder if Thalia has killed Don because he dies while in the hospital. On the other hand, perhaps Kyle, son of Jenny Mangino Don’s married lover, causes Don’s horse to buck and throw Don off onto the rocky ground, causing a serious head injury. Or perhaps Jenny herself causes the fall because she has tired of Don.

Xana must put together a number of clues to determine if Thalia is innocent or guilty. She must also reckon with Bryce Gilbertson and figure out why he gives her the creeps.

Bevan Atkinson gives a nod to Sue Grafton, who wrote the Kinsey Milhone alphabet mysteries, by naming one of Xana’s dogs in the first of the Tarot Mysteries, Kinsey. Atkinson, https://www.thetarotmysteries.com/, worked as Director of Retail Training for Apple Computer and also worked for other major corporations before turning to fiction writing.