Not the Real Jupiter — Barbara Wilson

In Gaudi Afternoon, translator Cassandra Reilly helped redefine the lesbian murder-mystery. Thirty years on, and Cassandra may be pushing 70, but she is still working the Spanish-English dictionary, still strapping on her traveling shoes and still tripping over dead bodies. The most recent belonged to Giselle Richard, a brilliant, mercurial publisher found dead on the beach below her house in Oregon. Cassandra barely knew Giselle―this is not that kind of tragedy―but there is a problem: Cassandra was seen breaking into Giselle's cottage not long before the body was discovered, and the cops would like to know why. Frankly, so would Cassandra.

Playing sleuth is nothing new for Cassandra, but she is new to the comfy, Birkinstock-wearing ways of West Coast lesbians, with their commitment ceremonies and vegetarian cafes. It's all something of a foreign country, but Cassandra is accustomed to making passage between two worlds. She's a translator, after all: She pays the rent by massaging the mores of one culture until they crack and yield meaning to another. Sifting through clues is not, in the end, so very different.