In Last Chants, Willa Jansson jumps to the defense of Arthur Kenna, an eccentric mythologist. Suspected of having done away with his assistant, an Indian shaman who was helping him program a computer in the mystic arts, Arthur flees to a cabin in the Santa Cruz Mountains with Willa in tow. As she searches for clues at the scene of the crime, a magnetic power spot in the wilderness that attracts New Agers and computer junkies, she flushes out more than she bargained for, including two industrial spies, a family of mushroom hunters and a hairy, naked man who claims to be the demigod Pan.

From Publishers Weekly
Matera's skills make an accomplished, compelling mystery of material that could have been a lightweight, New Age yarn. En route to a new job in downtown San Francisco, lawyer Willa Jansson, last seen in the Edgar-nominated Prior Convictions, is appalled to spot an old family friend, elderly professor Arthur Kenna, holding a man at gunpoint. Rather than leave Arthur to the mercy of the police, Willa pretends that Arthur has taken her hostage, grabs him and hares off to hide him out near Santa Cruz, in the mountain cabin of a friend, PI Edward Hershey. Arthur is as baffled by Willa's actions as he was by the stranger who thrust the gun at him and began yelling "'help," but he knows exactly what to do in the nearby woods: visit Bowl Rock, where his assistant, shaman Billy Seawuit was "practically disemboweled" only days earlier. While Arthur, an ethnobotanist and mythologist, internally visits other worlds to learn more about Billy's fate, Willa and Edward scope out a variety of strange characters: Galen Nelson, who reportedly brought Billy to the area to help develop a computer program meant "to access nonordinary states"; Toni, Galen's volatile wife; and a naked, reed-playing gentleman who roams the forest and eloquently tells the tale of the Greek demigod Pan. Although neither internal nor external investigation prevents a second murder, Willa experiences a mind-expanding week in which she learns that life can be much more complex and much simpler than she ever thought. Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Willa Jansson gets herself in trouble when she helps her friend Arthur, a mythology professor, evade arrest. Arthur's assistant, it seems, a Kwakiutl shaman, has been murdered. The pair hide out until the real killer appears. Recommended.Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

The New York Times Book Review, Marilyn Stasio
... it's a treat to watch the normally level-headed Willa crawling around in the woods, searching for naked gods.

From Booklist
Recently an Internet chat group of avid mystery fans exchanged a flurry of indignant responses to the news that Matera's publisher wanted her to focus solely on her Laura Di Palma series and forego any more Willa Jansson episodes. Fortunately, Willa is back in fine form in her fifth adventure, and it's hard to see why anyone would think this character had lost her appeal. En route to her first day on the job with a San Francisco law firm, Willa encounters an old family friend, mythology professor Arthur Kenna, brandishing a gun and sure to be arrested. Willa pretends to be his hostage and hightails them both out of the neighborhood before the police can act. It turns out that Arthur's recent assistant, Billy Seawuit, a Kwakiutl shaman who had taken a job working for a secretive software company, has been murdered, and someone is trying to set up Arthur as the killer. Willa realizes that the only way to clear Arthur (and herself) is to solve the crime. Hiding out in the mountain forest, Willa learns more than she really wants to about shamanism as she and Arthur dodge police and the strange humans they find living in the forest--although they don't succeed in avoiding an encounter with someone who claims to be the demigod Pan. Effectively blending the seemingly incongruous elements of high-tech computing and ancient mythology, Matera has produced a first-rate mystery, exhibiting her usual hallmarks of excellent plotting, solid characterizations, and brisk pacing. A sure thing for fans and a great way to introduce new readers to an outstanding mystery series. Stuart Miller

From Kirkus Reviews
In her first outing since Prior Convictions (1991), Willa Jansson, unlike her creator ``one of the few lawyers without a legal thriller in the works,'' has the perfect excuse for missing her first day at the newest of her numberless jobs: She's been taken hostage by a gun-toting madman. Well, she hasn't really; seeing her old family friend, benighted mythology professor Arthur Kenna, waving a gun at a man pretending to be his holdup victim, she's impulsively rescued gentle Arthur by pretending to be his hostage and spirited him away from the San Francisco police and off to the woods outside Santa Cruz--the very place, it turns out, where Arthur's assistant, Kwakiutl shaman Billy Seawuit, has just been murdered. Since the law is still very interested in Willa and Arthur, they go to ground among Billy's recent collaborators in Cyberdelics, the mom-and-pop computer firm whose latest projects include hardware that can smell and respond to your thoughts, and a software program called TechnoShaman, which will allow your computer to heal the sick and talk to the dead. Sound crazy? Wait till Willa sees Arthur keening in hours-long grief at Bowl Rock, or runs into the demigod/shaman Pan. As in The Maltese Falcon, a constant stream of loony byplay keeps you from doping out whodunit--unless you can call on your own online shaman. -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Attorney Willa Jansson is on her way to a new job at a firm specializing in very-nineties multimedia law. Battling rush-hour foot traffic on her way to her first day on the new job, Willa is sidetracked by the spectacle of a close, longtime family friend brandishing a gun on the street. She knows Arthur Kenna, the famous mythology scholar, too well to believe he means any harm, so when she spots a policeman running to arrest him, Willa acts on her instinct to "rescue" him. Pretending to be Arthur's hostage, Willa engineers their getaway through San Francisco's Financial District. Arthur explains to Willa that a passerby had pressed the gun into his hand, but she knows the police aren't likely to believe him, especially now that they think she's been taken hostage. And if they discover Willa is Arthur's friend, she'll no doubt be arrested as well. Worse, when a body turns up later the same morning and the police consider Arthur a prime suspect, to Willa's chagrin she and Arthur are forced to hide out in the mountain cabin of her old flame, Edward Hershey. Realizing that their only way out of hiding is to figure out who actually is responsible for the murder, Willa and Arthur enter a bizarre netherworld in which they meet high-tech software designers who claim that the murder victim was helping to develop a cybernetic shaman ... or was he performing shamanic psychiatry on a real computer nut? Barely eluding the police, Willa must cope with the "demigod Pan," survivalists in ersatz Indian abodes, and a host of other forest eccentrics - some of whom may be computer spies ... and one of whom is about to kill again.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

Matera's skills make an accomplished, compelling mystery of material that could have been a lightweight, New Age yarn. En route to a new job in downtown San Francisco, lawyer Willa Jansson, last seen in the Edgar-nominated Prior Convictions, is appalled to spot an old family friend, elderly professor Arthur Kenna, holding a man at gunpoint. Rather than leave Arthur to the mercy of the police, Willa pretends that Arthur has taken her hostage, grabs him and hares off to hide him out near Santa Cruz, in the mountain cabin of a friend, PI Edward Hershey. Arthur is as baffled by Willa's actions as he was by the stranger who thrust the gun at him and began yelling "`help," but he knows exactly what to do in the nearby woods: visit Bowl Rock, where his assistant, shaman Billy Seawuit was "practically disemboweled" only days earlier. While Arthur, an ethnobotanist and mythologist, internally visits other worlds to learn more about Billy's fate, Willa and Edward scope out a variety of strange characters: Galen Nelson, who reportedly brought Billy to the area to help develop a computer program meant "to access nonordinary states"; Toni, Galen's volatile wife; and a naked, reed-playing gentleman who roams the forest and eloquently tells the tale of the Greek demigod Pan. Although neither internal nor external investigation prevents a second murder, Willa experiences a mind-expanding week in which she learns that life can be much more complex and much simpler than she ever thought. (June)

Library Journal

Willa Jansson gets herself in trouble when she helps her friend Arthur, a mythology professor, evade arrest. Arthur's assistant, it seems, a Kwakiutl shaman, has been murdered. The pair hide out until the real killer appears. Recommended.

Entertainment Weekly

The real treat is Willa...whose love-hate relationship with men strikes a chord with many female fans.

Cleveland Plain Dealer

Lia Matera writes brilliantly.

NY Times Book Review