ABSTRACT
Hestia, goddess of hearth and home, might appear an unlikely divinity for the mystery’s quest for truth. In the Greek pantheon, Hestia is paired with the enquiring, mercurial Hermes, in the sense that Hestia inhabits the hearth, stays at home, while Hermes is darting about delivering messages. Typically for Falco’s Hestian cases, the children prove important to the solving of a complex series of financial, ethnic, and political crimes. When crime threatens within the orbit of the hearth, Hestia in a positive alliance with Hermes can enable a flexible, even tricky, renegotiation of domestic stability. Hestia fosters intuition as a focused centering consciousness that is the psychic manifestation of hearth and home. The chapter argued shat Hestia is a goddess of hearth and home who can vitally drive a detecting story. The quest for truth indigenous to mysteries can also be the need to make, restore, repair, or re-found a home, family, or community.
