Tea with the Black Dragon was a wonderfully subtle book. This sequel gets lost in it's own meanderings. A disappointing work from one of my favorite authors. (Actually the only book of her's that I have ever been disappointed with!)

This book is a nice follow-up to Tea With The Black Dragon. I didn't expect it to match the first one - and it didn't - but it did satisfy my curiosity about Martha's life with Long.

That being said, and this is no fault of the story or the author, this book is one of the worst edited and proofed I've ever read -full of disconcerting typos. It should be discounted as a damaged product.

Tea with a Black Dragon. Much better in my opinion. I read both of these books about 20 years ago, and was not disappointed with my re-read of the Dragon. However I remembered too late I was disappointed in the sequel. For me, personally, it was too much about the music mileau.

One thing I regret is that Ruth doesn't explain the reality behind the mysterious happenings either logically or mystically. I'd like to know why and how, not just who and when in the 'mystic' of it all.

Tea with a Black Dragon. Much better in my opinion. I read both of these books about 20 years ago, and was not disappointed with my re-read of the Dragon. However I remembered too late I was disappointed in the sequel. For me, personally, it was too much about the music mileau.

One thing I regret is that Ruth doesn't explain the reality behind the mysterious happenings either logically or mystically. I'd like to know why and how, not just who and when in the 'mystic' of it all.

Mayland Long and Martha Macnamara are as unlikely a couple as you could hope to meet. Martha is a fiftyish musician, Mayland is-- well, Mayland is unusual, as people who have read the first book in this set, Tea With the Black Dragon, know. When the book opens Mayland, Martha, Martha's young granddaughter Marty, and an ill assorted group of egotistical musicians have been on tour for eight weeks, playing traditional (and not so traditional) Irish folk songs. At this point tempers are frayed while insults (and the occasional fist) are flying.

Then Marty disappears, a member of the band is found hanged by a twisted grass rope off a Pacific pier, and it up to Martha and Mayland to solve the mystery of where Marty is and who the murderer is.

Written in the mid 80's this book is a great favorite of mine, an urban fantasy mystery that mixes Celtic and Eastern lore with some solid detection. The scenes with the band seem very true to life and the fantasy elements are delightfully underplayed. The chapter titles, by the way, as well as the title Twisting the Rope are all titles of trad. Irish tunes.