Among the Living by Jordan Castillo Price

4 STARS

Psycop - Book 1

I had heard many good things about JCP's PsyCop series, so I was really hoping I'd like it after the disappointment that was Magic Mansion. Luckily, I really, really enjoyed it! It was a good, fun read.

I'm not a huge fan of paranormals, but I do love a good cop story and this was a good cop story. The world-building is good and it works. Police detective psychics partnered up with non-psychics or "stiffs" is a simple premise but can give rise to all kinds of wonderful situations.

This book is written in a 1st person POV, that of one of the PsyCops, Victor Bayne and his voice is very real. He's not a hero type, just a cop that wants to do his job and not bring undue attention onto himself. I liked him. I liked his quirks and flaws and uncertainties. And I liked his humour and his caring and his honesty. For me, he's an easy guy to want to follow through his adventures.

The secondary characters, Jacob, Lisa, Warwick, Carol... they're all separate and distinct and while they are the types you see in a lot of detective type books, they are also original and interesting. I really liked Lisa and hope to see more of her in further books.

This was a novella and was over far too soon - but the story had been told and well told, so I shouldn't complain. The mystery made sense, the clues where there and the characters discovered things at the times they should have been discovered. There was no heroic flash of brilliance, no obvious deus ex machina, the characters solved the case when they should have.

I will definitely be reading more of this series.