DARKNESS AT THE DOOR

Bereft of her late husband, Mariana Morgan (Angel in the Dark, 1999) has accepted her vocation as a psychic healer—but not a second separation from her twin brother, Brian Field, who vanished shortly after sending her a postcard from Hawaii several years ago. As she’s working part-time giving readings at Enchantments, a shop run by her psychic friend Deirdre, she continues to search for some trace of Brian. Events overtake this mission, though, when Umberto Marconi, a new client who seems (like most of the other characters here) to have psychic gifts of his own, is murdered shortly after Mariana sees a possible disaster in his future. After the teasing from the local cops about how Mariana failed to predict Umberto’s future in more helpful detail dies down, one of them, Detective David Claybourne, begins to make definite moves in Mariana’s direction. His timing couldn’t be better, since Mariana’s sometime lover, L.A. County employee Art Freeman, is about to be hit by a car and sent into a coma. Also slated for serious plot complications is Mariana’s catty rival, wannabe psychic Alora Amadea, who disappears moments after a group-channeling and then reappears in a manner almost as disconcerting. None of these intrigues, however, deflect Mariana for long from her quest for information about Brian, and eventually she does get news of him, though not exactly the news she’d hoped for.

Heartfelt New Age milieu is a definite plus for like-minded readers; the more skeptical may want to look before they leap.