[Blind Sleuth Mystery 11] • The Desiderata Stone

Almost 600 pages of pure reading pleasure in one hefty tome. Each of these three novels has a beginning, a middle, and an end, so you have to start all over again each time. That can’t be helped, but at least the main protagonists stay the same, and in this edition Daisy and Desiderata’s adventures are published side by side, which is an added convenience.

We have Daisy Hayes, blind sleuth extraordinaire, born in 1922 and at the top of her game in 1964, when she encounters the name of Desiderata for the first time. And we have her doppelgänger in ancient Rome, born in AD 49 and struggling to reach out to someone, anyone, who will understand her, even if it should take two millennia to find that person.

Over the ages, their interaction is based entirely on scholarship, archaeology and detection. No magic nor tricks, only hard work, imagination, and love.