THE TRUTH SLEUTH

A psychic librarian finds romance and dead bodies while working in a public high school.

Kim Reynolds (The Drowning Pool, 2009) has a gift for foreseeing tragedy. Her “sensitivity” leads her to the body of high-school student Sam Granger, slumped over dead in a lawn chair at the raceway where Kim and her galpals April Nevins and Bert St. Croix had been watching the NHRA SuperNationals. Too bad her clairvoyance doesn’t warn her about her own rotten luck. First, cutbacks at the university’s library prompt her layoff. Then just as she’s getting used to her gorgeous new engagement ring, her boyfriend, police detective Mike Gardner, finds out that his wife never actually filed those divorce papers. Desperate for cash, Kim takes a job teaching English at a local high school only to discover that most of her students are dyslexic, disturbed or just plain disruptive. When acting principal Hank Anderson fixes his steely gaze on Kim, she figures he’s trying to find a way to fire her. Little does she know that the highly principled administrator is struggling with his growing desire for his newest teacher, whom he finds plucky beyond belief. Kim’s attempts to engage unruly Nick James get her car keyed and her engine sabotaged with sugar. Colleagues Shandra Wallace and Will Norgood offer Kim their support, but after Hank Anderson tries to discipline Nick, the teenager vows revenge. So when a second vision leads Kim to Nick’s body, Mike Gardner returns to the scene to choose as his prime suspect the new man in Kim’s life: Hank.

Shelving this sudser with the mysteries would be only the first mistake for any librarian who added Seewald’s third to her acquisitions list.