Orchid Jetsam

Prose. Subtitled A Detective Novel Series, ORCHID JETSAM includes two closely related mysteries, Orchid Jetsam and Clear Land. In the first, San Francisco homicide detective Grace Abe – inhabited by the ghost of a U.S. Marine who had been an undercover assassin – runs as ‘someone else’ within her own frame in public space where people are becoming ill in crowds. The epidemic, which at first appears as much psychic as physical, is caused by hemlock spread in food and in the public transit system. Detective Abe is addicted to a drug whose effect is a clear elation as she running. Biographical information about Dee Goda is not available. However, readers of the widely admired Leslie Scalapino, may suspect that she had something to do with the writing. Of the many titles by Leslie Scalapino’s available from SPD – the mostly recent are R-HU and THE PUBLIC WORLD/ SYNTATICALLY IMPERMANENCE.