TOUCHY AND FEELY
by Graham Masterton
Horror maven Masterton (Charnel House and Other Stories, 2002, etc.) kicks off a new series starring a nice New England widow who sees dead people and other nasty things.
Fortune-teller Sissy Sawyer’s son wants to spirit her away from frigid Connecticut for some quality time with his family in Florida. Apart from feeling not quite ready to be bossed around by Trevor, Sissy has a compelling reason to stay put. Her latest reading of the DeVane cards has indicated two separate storms bearing down on New Preston. Although Trevor neither believes in her psychic powers nor can imagine how she could intervene effectively even if they were authentic, she’s convinced that she’s urgently needed right where she is and won’t leave the town in the lurch. As the two of them dicker, somebody armed with a high-powered sniper’s rifle is driving around shooting happy people. It’s pretty obvious from early on that Det. Steve Wintergreen and his colleagues would seriously benefit from conversing with hyperarticulate teenaged hitchhiker Fidelio Valdes and Robert Touche, the man who gives him a providential lift. The growing intimacy between the two, neither of whom understands the other, is at once creepy and affecting. For the rest, though, there’s nothing to watch except Sissy making detailed, gloomy predictions that all prove true.
Forget Sissy and cherish the perverse chemistry between the two misfits who bond over murder most foul.