Victor Bayne lives in a slightly different America in Among the Living. In his America, it’s commonly accepted that there are people with varying degrees of psychic ability, and many of those train to be cops. It’s much easier to solve crime if you have a leg up, after all. Their partners are ALWAYS “Stiffs”, or people with no psychic ability, because their detective work is somehow more creditable if verified by a normal person. The idea is that the psychic will use their abilities in such a way that the Stiff can build a case leading to the correct perpetrator once they know the final answer.
Victor’s special talent is speaking with the dead – a major plus as a homicide detective – and his talent is so strong that he has authorization from command to take drugs to drown out all the voices. His longtime partner has retired, and at the retirement party, he meets a Stiff named Jacob Marks who is paired with a partner that is basically a human lie detector. The catch with her is that she can’t tell a lie herself. Of course Victor winds up being called away from the party after a bathroom hook-up with Jacob and mysteries ensue.
I don’t want to say anymore about the plot or characters because I want you to read this supernatural gay romance/mystery and figure it out for yourself. (I suppose it is technically considered a gay romance, but the mystery is definitely the strongest part of the story.) It’s short, maybe 120 pages on the Kindle. Got it? Good.