Bibliophile | Telepath Kreyna Katz returns to fight crime in Milgrane

Milgrane: Embracing the Sapphire
by Y.L. Wigman
Bella Books

In her first novel Filigrane, Perth author Yvonne Wigman’s interests in the paranormal and her penchant for creating lesbian characters who help save the world brought us Kreyna Katz. Kreyna was using her telepathic skills as a remote viewer to detect criminals as well as trying to sort out her complicated love life.

This time Kreyna is working with ASIO and the Sydney Police investigating a diamond heist at Brussels Airport where $US 50 million of cut and uncut diamonds disappeared in 5 minutes. In what could only be an inside job, four companies who had owned the diamonds were being investigated – two Italian, one Monacan and one Australian.

Constable Taite O’Dath of the Australian Federal Police is both intuitive and lesbian, though she has learned that it is easier to fly under the radar in a work environment where sexual harassment is still prevalent. When she has to interview Sabine Zaffiro, who was in Zurich waiting to collect diamonds for her family’s store in Australia at the time of the robbery, sparks fly. Years of policing have taught Taite never to presume anything but her interest in the straight-acting Sabine grows as she investigates her father, brother, half sister and step mother.

At times the intricate story seems to spend very little time on investigating the diamond heist and the solution to the crime comes in a rush. Family dramas, injustices that have been kept secret and romantic entanglements demand that the reader get to know the characters while solving the crime takes a back step.

Milgrane is a term used in jewellery making that describes beading that supports the setting of a jewel. At times the novel delves into some dark places and Milgrane is also the name of a support group made up of individuals wanting to use their powers to change collective human attitudes. The group helps Taite find direction as “too often we get caught up in the minutiae details of our lives and have no idea why or how we’re here, what we’re supposed to be doing, our purpose on earth”.

Lezly Herbert