This short story collection centers on the impact of separations and divorce on the participants including extended family members. However, the twenty tales share a dark look at IRRECONCILABLE DIFFERENCES as the audience is treated to situations that do not end as peacefully as our current legal system expects.

Lia Matera has put together a remarkable anthology that has several excellent stories, some very good tales, and no poor entry. The cross-genre contributors are a modern day who's who with such noted authors like Oates, Cross, Deaver, Lutz, Buchanan, and Muller, etc. None of the writers are lightweights as they all hold their own with the heavyweights. Anyone who enjoyed the Battle of the Roses will fully relish each tale that paints a very dismal look at broken relationships.

Harriet Klausner

The story line is new. The characters are interesting. The author made the characters come alive. The twists and turns of the search for the truth of what happened to Vincenzo was captivating. One minute you think you know what is coming, when a new twist is added. This is definitely not your old predictable mystery. I would suggest this book to anyone. I will be keeping this in my personal library. My friends will have to get their own copy.

grown-up hippie, willa jansson, a truly unique practioner of law, launches an outer limits defense of a mycologist accused of vehicular manslaughter. defense experts provide a veritable symposium on unexplained phenomena. engagingly wacky tone and wide ranging speculation complete with a bibliography.

Very entertaining and the theme is a trail about some one bieng abducted by a UFO is contriversing and Willa is the main charector is at her cranky hair pulling best and the suprise ending is bad either....

Lia Matera's mysteries are usually fun, but I particularly enjoyed this one. My work is in the paranormal community (a magazine dealing with UFOs, psychic phenomena, ghosts, etc.), and Matera has quite accurately captured the atmosphere of ufology today -- the eccentric and level-headed participants, the internecine rivalries. I was amazed by her perceptiveness and really quite even-handed treatment of this subplot in her novel. Don't be misled by these comments, however; this is not a UFO book; it is first and foremost a mystery. Matera's protagonist, Willa Janssen, is caught up in the complexities of defending a client with an impossible alibi; she doesn't know whether to believe him or not; yet she must make a convincing case to the jury. Is is possible that her client WAS abducted by aliens? Is he delusional? or Was he driving the car that caused the deaths of another car's occupants?

> As if finals and preparing for the bar exam aren't enough, senior law student Willa Jannson finds herself the newly elected editor-in-chief of the law school review after her predecessor' s head is cracked open with a blunt instrument. Can things get any worse for Willa? They can! They do!
> A lively read for a first series novel. The author is herself a former law review editor, law student, and lawyer, so she knows whereof she speaks. This book is best read in one sitting and followed by the next 2 books in the series, _A Radical Departure_ and _Hidden Agenda_ as they make for a nice trilogy.

I've just (belatedly) discovered Matera, but plan to spread the word --- the three I devoured today were excellent.

Willa Jansson is back from a year spent in exile, working for a large corporate firm in Los Angeles for the sake of her resume and bank account. Now she is back in San Francisco clerking for a judge. Before she knows it, she is in the middle of another confusing situation as a result of doing the favor for an old friend. This book was particlarly satisfying as it explored the motivations and conflicts of the anti-war activists. Willa's conflicts are many and the motives and motivations of the characters keeps us on the edge of our chair till the end.

the pot-smoking flower child daughter of beatnik idealists agonizes over lawyering in the materialistic culture of the early nineties. insightful look at politics in the judiciary. the protagonist's angst is infectious.

This is the best of the early Willa Jansson stories. (I haven't yet read the recent volumes that came out after a 5-year hiatus.) Focussing as usual on Willa's personal and professional crises, Matera puts Willa in yet another new job as a clerk for a federal judge, where a casual meeting with a high-powered lawyer leads to complications. Willa has clearly been set up, but by who and why? Willa searches for these and other answers with her ever-present supplies of wit and marijuana.

> Willa takes a job with the San Francisco office of a Wall Street firm? Willa -- a banker's attorney? Willa can hardly believe it herself, and her parents hardily disapprove. But $90,000 a year, up from $25,000 at the radical law firm in _A Radical Dparture_, is no joke. And, besides, Willa is not nearly so sure of her parents' politics these days.
> So Willa is not only horrified but disappointed when the office collapses after two of its partners are murdered. And it's hemlock again! Is someone trying to frame Willa? Indeed, even kill her?
> I read the first 3 books in this series one after another, and really recommend that if you can manage it. But each story stands alone, too, and Willa is as entertaining and enjoyable a heroine as the many other female "dicks" of today's mystery literature.

> This book follows _Where Lawyers Fear to Tread_. Willa's passed the bar and now working as a underpaid associate with legendary radical lawyer Julian Warneke's firm. The only problem is: Warneke gets poisoned at a posh restaurant, and the media love the coincidence of Willa's presence, given the previous "law school murders."
> Willa's left-wing parents, especially her mother, have a larger role in this novel than in the earlier one. For example, they have been Warneke's clients for some 15 years' worth of picketing and slammer time.
> The series is a good read, with a likeable, realistic heroine who smokes a little dope when she gets stressed and doesn't have all the answers all the time.

Written in the first person, at times "Havana Twist" reads more like an armchair travel book than a mystery novel. The Willa Jansson character is no ass-kicking feminist detective. Instead she leaves the hard work to her cop ex-boyfriend. He tries to solve the case while she worries about what to wear and if she'll get back together with him. When a man is shot dead beside her, she worries about a pinpoint powder burn on her thumb.

It paints the usual doom and gloom picture of Cuba, which I found to be extremely exaggerated (Are there really no dogs in Cuba??). I can only assume this was either for fictional impact or for political reasons; either way, this is not a book that anyone with a regard for accuracy will enjoy. There is certainly no attempt to balance or justify the constant depiction of Cuba as a sinister country, filled with paranoia and corruption, where you can trust no one. In fact the evil Chinese military and Hispanic villains lend the book racist undertones.

I found the style a bit self-conscious and culturally specific. Her cultural reference points were solidly two decades behind (an Andy Gibb look-alike??!!) and her new-age yuppie lifestyle does not contrast well with an attempt at a gritty third-world murder story.

To the book's credit, I did make it through to the end (although the plot was so tedious and cumbersome that I lost interest several times). It is constructed like the recollection of a bad dream, which makes the whole book lack believability. The book has its characters suddenly coming across deserted tunnels, meeting dark mysterious figures, suffering from mother anxiety, falling down shafts, running for airplanes.... Freud would have a field day. As the supporting characters are murdered around her, our heroine shows little remorse. I was waiting for a twist like the title suggested but it never came.

I loved Havana Twist! Matera has a very funny and sparkling writing style, bringing the locations and the characters to life. Most of her Willa Jansson books are set in San Francisco, where I grew up, and they are fantastic for local detail. A Canandian friend of mine who's been to Cuba was reading this book when he visited me over the holidays. He loved the descriptions of Havana, and he kept quoting lines to me half the night. To tell the truth, I had hesitated about ordering this one because a couple of fan reviews here on amazon made it sound not as good as the others in the series. But I'm really glad my friend made me want to order a copy. I thought this book was as every bit as funny and good if not better than other ones in the series--and that's saying a lot. I've never written a review for amazon before, but I wanted to say I definitely completely agree with the positive reviews here and strongly disagree with the negative ones. And so does my friend in Vancouver, who's been to Cuba several times. This book is a real page-turner, and Matera really makes you feel like you're right there. And some of her lines are so hilarious you want to phone somebody just to read them aloud. I recommend it very highly.

A fan in Portland

Willa Jansson is back in a mystery that is Lia Matera's best since 'Prior Convictions'. Havana Twist had me on the edge of my seat. Willa's mother, the original bleeding heart for socialism, disappears while on a tour of Cuba. Willa tries to retrace her footsteps and turns up a few clues that seem promising, but seem to lead no where. Months go by, and nothing pans out, until a Willa's former (much former!) love interest, Don Surgelato, SFPD lieutenant of homicide (and once on the receiving end of one of Willa's mother's very vocal, very public diatribes) picks up a tiny clue. The case escalates, Willa and Don eventually travel back to Cuba, only to return empty-handed. Fans of Matera's Willa Jansson series will love this quick-paced, dramatic story set against the backdrop of socialist Cuba. Like all of Matera's books, the novel is rich with political and social flavors, but without the world-weary cynicism of Matera's yuppie lawyer Laura DiPalma. Willa Jansson manages to maintain an innocent idealism, a belief in happy endings, even when all the evidence would indicate the ending has already come. Highly recommended, and if you've never read any of Matera's books, this is a great one to start with.

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.

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.

to really appreciate this novel, you need to read matera's previous willa jansson mysteries. otherwise, the dynamic between willa and the other key characters just don't ring true. willa knows her parent's old friend arthur kenna couldn't possibly have done anything to hurt any one and so when she sees him waving a gun on the street, she impulsively decides to pretend to be his hostage in hopes of keeping the police at bay until she can figure out what's going on. it turns out that her instincts are correct - a passerby thrust the gun into arthur's hand. later that same morning, while willa and arthur are still hiding out, a body turns up, and the police begin to search for arthur in earnest. thus begins the latest of willa jansson's adventures... matera has thrown in a romantic mountain cabin owned by willa's ex-boyfriend edward hershey, as well as an intriguingly suspicious computer software team who'd been working with the victim. there are some humorous touches, such as the people who live in the forest where willa and arthur are hiiding out. there are a few more strings than is entirely necessary to weave a good mystery, but on the whole this is a very good book.

high tech high jinks, high school memories and legal reputations all converge to give laura di palma a new beginning. when di palma escapes the clutches of death time after time, instead of heightening tension,it dullens the senses and the plot devolves into tedium.