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Victor Bayne, a gay man in his thirties, is a detective and a psychic. In fact, he was one of the very first participants in the Chicago Police Department's version of a nationwide program to pair psychic cops with non-psychic cops (also known as Stiffs) to solve crimes. When he was younger, however, Vic had to undergo a mandatory training for psychics in a brutal place named Camp Heliotrope (also known as Camp Hell), and the experience damaged his ability to trust other people. Life hasn't been easy for Vic. His family, whom he never thinks about, is dead, and he has no friends. He is a class-5 medium (class-6 is the highest ranking for psychics), and being a medium is one of the more grim psychic specialties. Dead people accost him all the time – always wanting to rail against the circumstances that caused their deaths. This helps close a lot of cases, but is not good for Vic's mental stability. An enthusiastic child of the pharmaceutical age, Vic pops pills constantly to dull the edge of his psychic powers: his prescription Auracel (but three times the recommended amount) if he's got it, and, if not, anything else such as muscle relaxants, barbiturates, and even Benadryl. This may sound dark, but it's not depressing. Vic has a sarcastic sense of humor and a deadpan flexibility in dealing with whatever life tosses his way. He exhibits an amusingly masculine incomprehension about how to dress well and keep his apartment in order. He drips sauce on his badly-sized sports jackets, and forgets to pick up his thrift-store suits at the dry cleaners. He won't make time to eat or get haircuts. He has a tough-guy's blunt and unsentimental way of narrating his story. Yet he also is a deeply vulnerable soul: unlucky in love, lonely, and way too sensitive for his own good. In fact, he seems about two nervous breakdowns away from falling apart completely. Tough guy and nervous wreck: Victor Bayne is a fascinating character, full of complex impulses. PsyCop – Partners includes two novellas detailing the first-person adventures of Victor Bayne. The first novella Among the Living is 118 pages. The second Criss Cross is 158 pages. Among the Living introduces Vic, wandering through a suburban house crowded with cops and well-wishers. It's a retirement party for Vic's partner, an older black man named Maurice who helped anchor Vic to reality during the years they worked together. Just the thought of being alone again makes Vic fish through his pockets for another Auracel. He goes to the bathroom to choke down his pill, and runs into sexy and charismatic detective Jacob Marks. Immediate attraction ignites between them, and they lock the door and have sex in the bathroom. It's an amusing, hot, and believable scene. A knock on the door by Vic's commanding officer jars him out of his bliss: a murder has occurred. Vic reports in and meets his new partner: a young Hispanic woman named Lisa Gutierrez. He likes her no-nonsense professionalism. He and Lisa arrive at the crime scene: a gay man was murdered during sex. Even weirder, his body is surrounded by bits of broken mirrors. Vic feels self-conscious because almost no one knows that he is gay, and he'd prefer to keep it that way. He tries to make contact with the dead guy, but can't connect with his spirit. He and Lisa return to headquarters only to get called in to their superior's office. In order to qualify as a "Stiff" and get appointed to the highly elite Paranormal Investigation Unit, Lisa had to pass tests to prove she has no psychic ability. Her test results startled headquarters: exactly random every time. That sort of control indicates psychic ability, not random guessing. Therefore, she disqualifies as a Stiff, and must give up her job as Vic's partner. No problem, you might say along with me here at Obsidian Bookshelf. She can just partner with a real Stiff and be the psychic member of her team. Well, first she'd have to get trained and certified at Camp Hell. Lisa stoically hands in her badge and weapon, but later on she confides in Vic. She has an ability that she calls "si / no" (Spanish for yes / no). She can get accurate predictions to simple yes-or-no questions. This will prove very handy to Vic in the future. But, for now, Lisa is off the case. However, smokin'-hot detective Jacob Marks and his psychic partner Carolyn get assigned to help Vic. Carolyn is Jacob's opposite: a prim, married woman. Cool and elegant, she is a class-2 psychic who knows whether or not people are telling the truth. However, her ability cuts both ways: she must always tell the truth. This causes Vic some trouble in the future. However, it's good that Jacob and Carolyn have joined the case because another gay man gets murdered. Now Vic must keep his fragile equilibrium, help Lisa with her uncertain future, negotiate the pleasures and pitfalls of a love affair with Jacob, and catch a supernatural murderer. This is a terrific novella – not an easy type of fiction to write. Among the Living is an all-night read! Criss Cross opens with Vic going fishing with his former partner Maurice. He is just learning the unfamiliar rituals of the-rod-and-reel (such as baiting the hook, and sitting around waiting), when he realizes that the water is full of dead people. He has to leave the scene right away. In the days to come, Vic is put on a cold-case involving a child-killer. His new Stiff partner Roger Burke follows him around, offering him coffee and cheery words of advice. Vic can barely pay attention to how much Burke's gee-whiz personality grates on him because his psychic abilities are going completely out of control. Dead people are swarming him all the time: voices and full-visuals. Who can help Vic? Not Maurice, fading back into retirement. Lisa is away building her psychic powers in a much better school than Camp Hell. Vic would never unburden himself on goofy Burke. And his live-in lover Detective Jacob Marks? Jacob is at the center of Vic's anxiety. Vic fears he may harm Jacob because the door seems to have cracked open on Vic's mind, leaving him vulnerable to possession by a murderer whose execution Jacob had to witness. A murderer known as the Criss Cross Killer. In his sleep, Vic has started to scratch and cut x-shaped patterns on Jacob's body. Lisa, who is not supposed to make contact with the outside world, gets a text message to Vic warning him that he's in great danger. Jacob moves out to a hotel. Vic is afraid he's lost his lover. After suffering a near-breakdown, Vic goes to the clinic, but his doctor has mysteriously vanished, and he's assigned to a new physician. She strips him of his much-needed Auracel prescription and puts him on another drug that only amplifies his psychic powers. Vic is losing the ability to tell reality from fantasy. Desperate, he decides to travel from Chicago to California to seek advice from Lisa at her training facility. Obviously he can't drive, and he doesn't know where Jacob is to ask for a ride. But helpful Roger Burke volunteers. Now Vic is half out-of-his-mind, on a road trip through the shadowy back-ways of Route 66 with a cheery weirdo of a partner whom he barely knows, and dead people crowding in on him everywhere. His only tether to reality is an increasingly suspenseful series of text messages from Lisa who, with her imperfectly trained talent, warns him that he is heading into worse and worse danger. PsyCop – Partners by Jordan Castillo Price is a very entertaining mystery. It features hot sex scenes between Vic and Jacob. But it's also anchored by a strong storyline and (even better) vivid, complex characterization in Vic. A final word about Vic: his first-person narrative is so authentic. He's just a regular guy. Here at Obsidianbookshelf.com, I was convinced that author Jordan Castillo Price must be a man: after all, the name is ambiguous. But, no. A visit to her website confirmed that she's a woman. What a feat of talent and empathy to create a male character as believable as Vic!
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PsyCop - Partners by Jordan Castillo Price
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