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Lia Matera

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Last Chants (The Willa Jansson Mysteries) Kindle Edition

by Lia Matera (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

4.0 14 ratings

Book 5 of 7: The Willa Jansson Mysteries

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Helping a family friend who’s been framed for murder has a San Francisco lawyer living like a fugitive in this mystery by the author of Prior Convictions.

Attorney Willa Jansson’s found a new position in the growing field of multimedia law—it’s the ’90s, after all. Given her track record, she’s hoping this job will be smooth sailing. Unfortunately, during her morning commute through the Financial District, she sees a friend of her mother’s—mythologist and pacifist Arthur Kenna—about to be arrested for holding a stranger at gunpoint. Willa does the first thing she can think of to save him: she pretends to be Arthur’s hostage.

Arthur explains that it was the alleged victim who’d placed the gun in his hand, but Willa knows the police won’t buy that—especially after Arthur’s assistant is found dead. Forced to hide out in a Boulder Creek mountain cabin belonging to an old flame of Willa’s, the fugitive duo soon realizes their only way out of the woods is to locate the real killer. Doing so means digging into Arthur’s assistant’s past, and divining the truth in a community of high-tech gurus, strange survivalists, a cybernetic shaman, and a nudist who thinks he’s the demigod Pan . . .

“Effectively blending the seemingly incongruous elements of high-tech computing and ancient mythology, Matera has produced a first-rate mystery, exhibiting her usual hallmarks of excellent plotting, solid characterizations, and brisk pacing.” —Booklist

“Few writers possess Lia Matera’s wry humor, especially when it comes to putting down lawyers, or her eye for Northern California fauna.” —San Jose Mercury News

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Matera's skills make an accomplished, compelling mystery of material that could have been a lightweight, New Age yarn. En route to a new job in downtown San Francisco, lawyer Willa Jansson, last seen in the Edgar-nominated Prior Convictions, is appalled to spot an old family friend, elderly professor Arthur Kenna, holding a man at gunpoint. Rather than leave Arthur to the mercy of the police, Willa pretends that Arthur has taken her hostage, grabs him and hares off to hide him out near Santa Cruz, in the mountain cabin of a friend, PI Edward Hershey. Arthur is as baffled by Willa's actions as he was by the stranger who thrust the gun at him and began yelling "'help," but he knows exactly what to do in the nearby woods: visit Bowl Rock, where his assistant, shaman Billy Seawuit was "practically disemboweled" only days earlier. While Arthur, an ethnobotanist and mythologist, internally visits other worlds to learn more about Billy's fate, Willa and Edward scope out a variety of strange characters: Galen Nelson, who reportedly brought Billy to the area to help develop a computer program meant "to access nonordinary states"; Toni, Galen's volatile wife; and a naked, reed-playing gentleman who roams the forest and eloquently tells the tale of the Greek demigod Pan. Although neither internal nor external investigation prevents a second murder, Willa experiences a mind-expanding week in which she learns that life can be much more complex and much simpler than she ever thought.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

Amazon.com Review

In Last Chants, Willa Jansson jumps to the defense of Arthur Kenna, an eccentric mythologist. Suspected of having done away with his assistant, an Indian shaman who was helping him program a computer in the mystic arts, Arthur flees to a cabin in the Santa Cruz Mountains with Willa in tow. As she searches for clues at the scene of the crime, a magnetic power spot in the wilderness that attracts New Agers and computer junkies, she flushes out more than she bargained for, including two industrial spies, a family of mushroom hunters and a hairy, naked man who claims to be the demigod Pan. --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

About the Author

Lia Matera was a Teaching Fellow at Stanford Law School before becoming a full-time writer of legal mysteries. --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

From Kirkus Reviews

In her first outing since Prior Convictions (1991), Willa Jansson, unlike her creator ``one of the few lawyers without a legal thriller in the works,'' has the perfect excuse for missing her first day at the newest of her numberless jobs: She's been taken hostage by a gun-toting madman. Well, she hasn't really; seeing her old family friend, benighted mythology professor Arthur Kenna, waving a gun at a man pretending to be his holdup victim, she's impulsively rescued gentle Arthur by pretending to be his hostage and spirited him away from the San Francisco police and off to the woods outside Santa Cruz--the very place, it turns out, where Arthur's assistant, Kwakiutl shaman Billy Seawuit, has just been murdered. Since the law is still very interested in Willa and Arthur, they go to ground among Billy's recent collaborators in Cyberdelics, the mom-and-pop computer firm whose latest projects include hardware that can smell and respond to your thoughts, and a software program called TechnoShaman, which will allow your computer to heal the sick and talk to the dead. Sound crazy? Wait till Willa sees Arthur keening in hours-long grief at Bowl Rock, or runs into the demigod/shaman Pan. As in The Maltese Falcon, a constant stream of loony byplay keeps you from doping out whodunit--unless you can call on your own online shaman. -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

Review

... it's a treat to watch the normally level-headed Willa crawling around in the woods, searching for naked gods. -- The New York Times Book Review, Marilyn Stasio --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

From Library Journal

Willa Jansson gets herself in trouble when she helps her friend Arthur, a mythology professor, evade arrest. Arthur's assistant, it seems, a Kwakiutl shaman, has been murdered. The pair hide out until the real killer appears. Recommended.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

From Booklist

Recently an Internet chat group of avid mystery fans exchanged a flurry of indignant responses to the news that Matera's publisher wanted her to focus solely on her Laura Di Palma series and forego any more Willa Jansson episodes. Fortunately, Willa is back in fine form in her fifth adventure, and it's hard to see why anyone would think this character had lost her appeal. En route to her first day on the job with a San Francisco law firm, Willa encounters an old family friend, mythology professor Arthur Kenna, brandishing a gun and sure to be arrested. Willa pretends to be his hostage and hightails them both out of the neighborhood before the police can act. It turns out that Arthur's recent assistant, Billy Seawuit, a Kwakiutl shaman who had taken a job working for a secretive software company, has been murdered, and someone is trying to set up Arthur as the killer. Willa realizes that the only way to clear Arthur (and herself) is to solve the crime. Hiding out in the mountain forest, Willa learns more than she really wants to about shamanism as she and Arthur dodge police and the strange humans they find living in the forest--although they don't succeed in avoiding an encounter with someone who claims to be the demigod Pan. Effectively blending the seemingly incongruous elements of high-tech computing and ancient mythology, Matera has produced a first-rate mystery, exhibiting her usual hallmarks of excellent plotting, solid characterizations, and brisk pacing. A sure thing for fans and a great way to introduce new readers to an outstanding mystery series. Stuart Miller --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B08Z3TT1RZ
Publisher ‏ : ‎ MysteriousPress.com/Open Road (June 1, 2021)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ June 1, 2021
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 3437 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
Print length ‏ : ‎ 307 pages

Best Sellers Rank: #1,494,532 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #8,251 in Traditional Detective Mysteries (Kindle Store)
- #10,748 in Amateur Sleuth Mysteries (Kindle Store)
- #14,017 in Traditional Detective Mysteries (Books)

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4.0 14 ratings

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PrairieMan

Lia's Books Crack Me Up...This is No Exception

Reviewed in the United States on March 29, 2004

It helps to be an old leftie and a bit on the fringe, culturally, to enjoy Lia Matera's books. I can see where conservatives might not 'get' her, but I even wonder about that.
I discovered Lia Matera just last week at the library. I picked up, "Star Witness," off the paperback mystery rack, a section I never usually glance at. I was on my way out having picked up the books I wanted. Sometimes I have my best luck, though, discovering new authors when I swipe a few books off the shelves without thinking. The primary colors of the cover of the Star Witness book looked stupid to me, but I thought, hey, trust your intuition and grabbed the paperback. What a find! (I read it, and skipped the other books I'd chosen, so I could go back the next day and get more of Lia's books!)
I have read two of her other novels since then (note the dark circles under my eyes)...both Willa Jansson mysteries. I've had no problem following characters that were developed in her other novels, but that's probably because Matera's writing style is what I'm most interested in-she knows how to surprise her readers with metaphors and comments that hit the funny bone and ring true. She keeps her characters fresh and true to life in the most unlikely, whacked-out or scary circumstances.
In 'Last Chants', Lia did her reseach in some detail (as she did about UFOs, in "Star Witness") about the Pan mythology. She provides a kind of lazy-woman's quicktime education for her smart,but laid back readers, augmented by her outlandish humor. You won't believe the plot twists and the kinds of things she forces her characters to do.
I haven't found an author I felt addicted to this much since I was introduced to Alice Hoffman, years ago, when depression and fantasy were, in retrospect, my thing. Now I'm happy that I can barely keep up with Lia's high energy, spaced-out realism and lawyerly precision of plot.
In "Last Chants" there was, for me, not a moment of unnecessary description...the story consistently moved forward with every page. Compact flashes of Willa's inner states kept her character sensitive, smart and smart alec, to my pleasure. Highly recommended.
I spent another night reading "Havana Twist," a cutting romp through taudy, tourismo, politico Cuba. A memorable line I still recall was Willa's description of Havana's low ceiling airport, built "in the architectural style of a campground bathroom." I cracked up at that comparison and couldn't read for a few minutes. It could have been that a dose of my semi-narcotic prescription cough syrup for this damn winter hacking was kicking in for the night, but I laughed 'til I wept.
I love this author-and I've never been a mystery fan before-but I GOTTA get some sleep! I'm just as happy I didn't discover Lia Matera earlier in life. I have many hours of mystery and fun ahead. If I burn out, I'll take a break and read some Margaret Atwood to bring me down, then back dive in for more.

2 people found this helpful

Helpful

MGM

Ok mystery

Reviewed in the United States on February 20, 2015

Verified Purchase

Lacks a believable plot but has an interesting female point of view.

Reviewed in the United States on February 25, 2001

It is always difficult to do justice to a book and author when you start in the middle of an established series. (On the other hand, shouldn't each book in a series be able to stand on its own?) This intallment obviously draws on characters and situations more thoroughly developed in earlier stories. So I really didn't feel I knew enough about the characters, just from this book alone, to empathise with their predicament and understand their motivations. Also, the shamanic/Pan theme was quite over-emphasised and distracting and not too well juxtaposed with the other techno theme. However, the Willa Jansson character has intrigued me sufficiently to want to explore at least one more of the books in this series.

Reviewed in the United States on November 28, 2000

reluctant lawyer, willa jansson, is diverted from her first day at her new job when she spots one of her parents' septuagenarian friends weilding a gun on a busy downtown sidewalk. as usual the theme is off-beat:mysticism meets cybernetics. more detective than legal fiction.

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Amazon Customer

New Age Murder Mystery

Reviewed in the United States on November 29, 2004

This is a Willa Jansson mystery. On a crowded street, Willa meets a family friend named Arthur Kenna holding a gun on someone in front of a policeman. Willa manages to get the Kenna away with her, and together they escape into the mountains, only to find out that the friend's assistant was murdered near their mountain retreat, just before Willa met Kenna on the street. Indeed, the village where their mountain hideout is located is filled with interesting characters, including a firm called Cyber-Delics, which is working on a project called Cyber-Shaman. It seems everyone Willa meets has a secret mystical history. It's up to her to sort out the characters and figure out who the killer was before he - or she - strikes again.

The story is filled with many New Age themes, such as shamanism, mysticism, and mythology. Unfortunately, Matera doesn't quite have a firm understanding of computer technology. At one point, she has Willa pondering how vastly different the world would have been if Apple had managed to kill off Bill Gates before he founded Microsoft-we would never have had Windows, she concludes. True, we might not have had an operating system called Microsoft Windows, but the Windows interface borrowed (stole?) so much from Apple that our computer screens might not have looked that different at all, with or without Bill Gates.

The choice of Alexa Bauer as a narrator for this book was quite inappropriate. Willa tells this story from her point of view, and she is a Californian. Bauer, on the other hand, has a British accent. This difference in accents could possibly be overlooked, except at one point Willa relates a conversation with a person with a British accent, and complains that she couldn't identify which part of the UK the person is from because she doesn't know her British accents. To hear this coming from the mouth of a Brit with a strong British accent is odd, indeed. Bauer uses British rather than American pronunciations of certain words, such as chamois as "sham-wa" (accent on second syllable). She also has very little knowledge of computer technology, at one point saying that someone's computer had Ad-dob (accent on first syllable) Premier loaded on it.

Overall, the story left me with marginal interest, at best. The material about technology was inaccurate and preposterous, and the New Age elements were rather puerile. The narration was bad, but at least the story was mostly coherent.

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Last Chants (The Willa Jansson Mysteries) Kindle Edition

Editorial Reviews

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Lia Matera

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