View source for Preposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery by Jennifer Mason

{{infobox
|title=Preposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery
|sort=
|author=Jennifer Mason
|reviewer=Jill Murphy
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=A Californian dominatrix follows a series of disappearances. Sometimes cynical, sometimes humorous, sometimes jaded, sometimes curious, but always thoughtful, this is a complex mystery with plenty of twists and turns. A pleasure to read.
|rating=4
|buy=Yes
|borrow=Yes
|pages=308
|publisher=Century
|date=March 2022
|isbn= 978-0998022147
|cover=B09STS96HS
|aznuk=B09STS96HS
|aznus=B09STS96HS
}}

''A struggling poetry zine, a mom-and-pop mobile diner in the Northern California redwoods, a 400-meter hurdler who just missed the 2004 Olympics, a women's track coach with a yen for bullwhips, a billionaire with a state-of-the-art S&M dungeon, a man serving a life sentence in Alabama, an enigmatic signature, K(s, x), on a cheap oil painting, an erotic art dealer in Georgia...''

This is just a sample of the cast of characters and settings in ''Preposterous''. As you can see, some keeping up will be required! The basic premise of this mystery story goes like this...

... Elizabeth Jane Cromwell is a dominatrix in San Francisco. Her professional life operates out of a set up called, somewhat evasively, the English Department. But yes, along with the whips and chains, there are plenty of books. When a longstanding customer of Elizabeth's jumps off a bridge to his death, nobody is more surprised than she to discover that this client represented a former associate of hers, Hannah Kier. Hannah has been missing for seven years but before she vanished from Elizabeth's life, she had set up a charitable trust and made Elizabeth its trustee.

Another old friend and associate, Faith, explains to Elizabeth that the trust was set up for Hannah's daughter, Edith, whose existence has been kept secret. But when Elizabeth arranges to meet Edith, Edith also disappears. And then the body of another missing person with connections to the Californian BDSM scene, this time a man, is found in the garden of a house that once belonged to Hannah and Faith. As Elizabeth attempts to unravel this series of disappearances, she will find a lot more than she bargained for. And all for a trust containing a couple of thousand dollars.

I enjoyed reading this deeply convoluted mystery and I should note that a mystery is what it is, not a piece of erotica. There is sex, but it's not the point. More to the point is Elizabeth's personality - a woman who's been around the block many times and in more ways than one, she makes as hardboiled an investigator as any male detective in the noir genre. She can be bored, cynical, humorous, laconic; but she's always alert and watchful and nothing gets past her. I had full confidence that she would get to the bottom of what had happened but much less certainty in what she would decide to do about it.

You will need to read ''Preposterous'' with the same careful attention Elizabeth brings to her investigation. The cast is big, the plot is twisting and Mason does not make things easy for a reader who is not paying proper attention. I loved the Californian setting, especially the description of San Francisco, which feels deeply authentic and intimate. If you're prepared to put in the effort, ''Preposterous'' will more than repay you.

If you're looking for further reading, [[Dark Angels by Grace Monroe]] is a more traditional crime novel featuring a dominatrix.

{{amazontext|amazon=B09STS96HS}}
{{amazonUStext|amazon=B09STS96HS}}

{{commenthead}}