Possession

July 15, 2013
Another entry (Poltergeist, 2007, etc.) in this well-established contemporary urban-fantasy noir series about Seattle-based psychic PI Harper Blaine. Following a near-death experience, Harper became a Greywalker with the ability to see and enter a paranormal dimension inhabited by ghosts and other, much more malevolent, entities. This time out, a frantic lady named Lillian Goss contacts Harper. Lillian's sister Julianne, whom Lillian looks after, is in a persistent vegetative state--when she suddenly sits up and begins to paint. Lillian fears Julianne may be possessed. Observing the patient, Harper finds Julianne's attracted a dense cluster of ghosts, some of them very unpleasant characters indeed; Richard Stymak, the medium Lillian brought in, is plainly overmatched. Harper discovers two other PVS patients in Seattle. One of them roused himself and writes compulsively; the other exhibits pictures and text all over his body. Ghosts swarm about both. All three are connected by some form of involvement with the State Route 99 tunnel currently under construction. Moreover, Harper's boyfriend, Quinton Purlis, has absented himself in order to try and tackle his father, James. Purlis Senior, a thoroughly nasty piece of work, is a spook running a black op somehow connected with vampires--at least, high-ranking, intimidating vampire Carlos, an old acquaintance of Harper's, believes so. Perhaps most disturbing of all is the thread leading back to one of the darkest episodes in Seattle's history. Distinctively well-fleshed-out characters and an absorbing, logically constructed plot lift this one, and the series, above the supernatural average. Greywalker fans and curious newcomers both will feel welcome.

COPYRIGHT(2013) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

August 1, 2013
In the eighth Greywalker novel, Seattle private investigator Harper Blaine reluctantly agrees to look into the odd case of a comatose woman who is apparently possessed. Harper, despite her own experience with the strange and unusual, is skeptical, but when she learns of two other, similar cases, she's intrigued. Could someone or something be trying to communicate from the other side? And what, she soon wonders, does a woman responsible for dozens of deaths nearly a century ago have to do with what is happening today? Harper Blaine is an interesting character. As faithful series readers know, a few years ago she died for two minutes, and now she is one of the rare few who can move through the overlapping fringes of the world of the normal and that of the paranormal, as she describes herself here. Richardson surrounds her with an assortment of well-drawn characters, human and otherwise, and gives her a good, solid mystery to solve. Fans of the previous series entries or of urban fantasy in general should be well pleased.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)