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PsyCop 3 - Body and Soul by Jordan Castillo Price

First-person narrator Vic Bayne, 38 years old and a comically anxious guy, works in the Chicago Police Department PsyCop program which pairs psychic cops like him with non-psychics known as Stiffs. Vic is an unusually strong psychic, but he has a high-stress talent:  he's a medium who can see and speak with the dead. 

In his two previous adventures (PsyCop 1 – Among the Living, and PsyCop 2 – Crisscross), the demands of Vic's talent drove the poor guy to reach more and more for his anti-psychic prescription Auracel (or whatever improvised equivalent came in handy). Now in a committed relationship with smokin'-hot detective Jacob Marks (the Stiff half of another PsyCop team), Vic bravely decides to go off drugs. Here at ObsidianBookshelf.com, I applaud his decision, recognizing its comic potential!

Chapter 1 opens on Thanksgiving Day. Vic and Jacob have driven up from Chicago to Wisconsin to eat dinner with Jacob's working-class family.  At the head of the table sits wizened old Grandma Marks who has been glaring at Vic ever since Jacob introduced him as "my boyfriend."

Young nephew Clayton eagerly wants to know if Jacob has shot anyone since last summer. Jacob's tightly-wound sister Barbara tries to keep her kid in line. The matriarch Shirley serves the traditional dinner. Her husband Jerry and her brother Leon turn on the game. They have no problem with Vic's total non-interest in football, stating (p.20), "We don't watch the Bears in this house unless they're getting their asses handed to them by the Packers."

In short, everything is normal.  Except that Vic's psychic talent allows him to see Leon's severed arm which the man lost in a mill accident in 1978! The ghostly arm still looks attached to Leon's shoulder. As Vic tries not to watch, it fingers the silverware, sweats blood, and slaps its palm on the table in robust hilarity. At one point, it gives Vic a modest "pshaw" gesture. 

Meanwhile, the lively and opinionated family peppers Vic with questions about his job as a Psycop. They want to know all about the more interesting psychic talents that Jacob, as a Stiff, can't describe to them.  Vic tries hard to hold up his end of the conversation, but soon he finds himself locked in the bathroom, plundering the family medicine cabinet for any pharmaceutical to help him through the rest of the evening – and he's not above huffing some of Shirley's nail-polish remover!  Lucky for him, Jacob has some Auracel on hand. 

It's a funny scene, and touching:  Vic's heartfelt attempts to "be a decent boyfriend" and cope with Jacob's family, including Uncle Leon, missing arm and all! But soon he has bigger problems to worry about.  His superior calls and summons him back to Chicago:  three people have disappeared under suspicious circumstances, including the nephew of an alderman. 

The Chicago Police Department needs Vic to return, meet his new Stiff partner, and get working on the case.  If that weren't enough right there, Jacob brings up the possibility of them looking for a house so that they can move in together. This is a bigger deal than it would be for most people because they will need to find a place that is not haunted by any ghosts so that Vic can live there in peace.

Ordinarily, they could fall back on some long-distance help from precognitive friend Lisa, now training in California:  she could use the "si/no" (answering yes-or-no questions) to pick some good real estate for them.  But, to Vic's dismay, Lisa tells him to stop taking advantage of her powers.  She even cancels her cell-phone service so he can't reach her. 

Now Vic has to meet his new partner Zigler:  a big slab of a guy who at first glance (p.100) "couldn't be anything other than a police officer or a football coach." To make things even more awkward, Vic is the senior partner though he suspects that Zig is probably a better cop than he is.  He will have to educate Zig on how to run interference between him and all the non-psychic Police Department personnel who show up to work the crime scenes and regard psychics like Vic with deep suspicion. Even worse, he'll have to find a way to blurt out to Zig that he's not only gay, but moving in with Detective Jacob Marks.  That initial I'm-gay conversation is always a nerve-wracking one!

At only 144 pages, PsyCop #3 - Body and Soul contains some wonderful comic scenes, some hot sex, and some first-rate action such as an extended chase sequence when Vic, leading a couple of uniforms, works with a whiny, disembodied voice to help track a fleeing suspect. Elsewhere, we have the welcome return of Crash, a sexy and troublesome guy who runs an occult supplies store. Crash, who once dated Jacob and who lusts after Vic, seems destined to shake up their relationship!  Once he invades Vic's thoughts, he's hard to forget.  Plus, Jacob unexpectedly offers Vic a chance to do a three-way with him and Crash as sort of "get him out of your system" plan." Oh, Jacob – bad idea!  I definitely see future complications there! 

The PsyCop series is one of my homoerotic favorites because of the pitch-perfect masculinity of the characters.  They're just realistic guys who like plenty of hot sex and have nothing Ladylike about their relationship at all. With this third installment, Body and Soul, I find myself even more looking forward to following the series in the future.  I want to know why Vic, an unlikely graduate of the Cook County Mental Health Center, decided to become a cop.  I want to hear about his parents. I'm curious about the fabled Marie Saint Savon, an even stronger medium than Vic, who could command the dead to do her bidding. I look forward to Lisa's return in subsequent adventures.  And I've definitely got to know what kind of trouble Crash is going to cook up. PsyCop #3 - Body and Soul is a terrific continuation of the PsyCop series!

Relevant Links:   PsyCop Partners by Jordan Castillo Price (contains #1 and #2) Mystery Fiction PsyCop.com, Jordan Castillo Price's website Which One of Two Lovers Did I Like Best and Why? Great Moments in Dialogue   Buy PsyCop 3 – Body and Soul as an ebook at Torquere Press through this link. Verdant by Jordan Castillo Price.  What writer would dare tackle the End of the World in a 10-page short story? Look no further than Jordan Castillo Price's Verdant.  Our hero Colin realizes from an offhand conversation with coworkers around the water cooler that he has an unappreciative lover. But soon he has bigger problems as everything starts to get weird! This short story, which doesn't waste a single word, features hot sex, humor, and a really tantalizing sense of where-the-heck-is-this-going?  When you get to the end, the answer is even better than expected. Jordan Castillo Price is one of the most gifted writers of comedy in homoerotic fiction today. Verdant, an ebook, is available from Torquere Press.

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