Off My Rocker:

Recommendations from a Book Nut

Winter Chills
(December 2007)

With the recent broadcast of a number of TV shows about psychic detectives such as Ghost Whisperer, Medium, Moonlight and Psych, some titles about para-normal detectives might make for some fun winter chills.

ALPHABET OF THORN, by Particia McKillip

In this story that flows back and forth in time a young wizard studying at the famous Floating School for Mages brings to Librarian-in-training, Nepenthe, a book for translating. It’s mystery, written in thorn-like letters, obsesses Nepenthe as from it she translates the story of Axis, an historical emperor and his sorcerer Kane and becomes involved in the contemporary mystery of who is trying to unseat the current young and untried queen Tessera.

POINT OF DREAMS, by Melissa Scott

In Astreiant, an alternate world with a Renaissance flavor, spirits return after the death of their corporeal body unless that body has been murdered. A dead judge’s spirit has gone missing and the city rulers call on local copper (known in this reality as a pointsman) to investigate.

The investigation takes our hero to a popular theater production based on a grimoire concerning the magic of plants and flowers. More dead bodies turn up -drowned where there is no water. Who’s murdering people, how, and what’s the motivation?

As a fantasist, Scott is often overlooked yet her world building is satisfying and the mystery in this tale is intriguing.

SHADOWS IN THE DARKNESS, by Elaine Cunningham

GiGi Gellman, spent ten years with the Providence Police Department before she was fired on trumped up charges. Now a private detective at 30-something, she looks like a teenager. This is an advantage given her current job investigating the disappearance of a 14-year-old girl. The search takes her to a "gentleman’s" club which employs under-age erotic dancers

GiGi has always had "intuitive" moments and there’s something about the club and it’s owner, other than the general nastiness of employing children as sex-objects, that makes her uneasy. As evidence piles up, GiGi comes to the conclusion that the club-owner may not be entirely human. More disturbingly – GiGi may not be either.

SMOKE AND SHADOWS, by Tanya Huff

Tony Foster is coming up in the world. He has moved from living on the streets to living with a 400-year old vampire and now has a paying job and his own apartment.

Tony has been taken on by a production company which features the T.V. show, Darkest Night about, oddly enough, a vampire detective.

Our hero has a talent for seeing things others don’t particularly supernatural things. In this outing he is jumping at shadows; destructive shadows which seem to move on their own.

This is the first in a series full of wry and very dark humor and, now and then, true chills.