Three-Ring Circus

"When you thought about it, I'd pulled off a miracle getting Franny to attend Fred's funeral in tears rather than picketing it in Birkies."




After decades of marriage, motherhood, and grandmotherhood, Cat Caliban has become Cincinnati's newest, oldest, funniest detective-in-training. During the sixties, Cat was too distracted by the war on the home front between her activist daughter and her husband to pay attention to the antiwar movement. But doves, like pigeons, come home to roost, and Franny's visit to her mother coincides with the murder of a former antiwar activist during a new round of demonstrations.




Cat investigates to clear one of her homeless friends, a Vietnam vet, who is suspected of the killing. She is daily assaulted by the health food that has invaded her refrigerator and Franny's guitar playing and off-key singing, but as she uncovers secrets from the past a deadlier assailant tries to force her underground permanently.