BABY, TAKE A BOW

It will take more than one North Carolina psychic to solve a detective’s tangle of cases.

Private eye David Randall lives in his friend Camden’s Parkland boardinghouse, home to an eclectic bunch of oddballs. Laid-back Camden is a psychic whose prickly, ambitious bride, Ellin, a producer for the Psychic Service Network, is always pushing him to get a better job. When his house-hunting housemate, Rufus Jackson, gets a letter from his ex-wife, Bobbi, telling him that he’s the father of her baby, he and his wife, Angie, ask Randall to check it out. Arriving at Bobbi’s house, Randall finds the police hauling away her body and no baby in sight. Rufus may be the prime suspect, but Bobbi’s been involved in some weird things, including perhaps a plot to sell her baby to finance a fancy new place. In addition, Randall and Camden are helping Janice Chan, whose hot dog establishment is haunted by a ghost fox and whose mother, Mei Chan, wishes she would become a lawyer. When Camden agrees to sing at the Carlyle House, he finds that the ghost of former occupant Delores Carlyle is trapped and wants out. She offers Randall $30,000 in hidden gems if he can entice her estranged daughter, Beverly, to the house. In exchange, Beverly insists that Randall get her son, Kit, a psychic who hasn’t learned to handle his power, a place to live. While juggling all these secondary problems, Randall and Kary, the love of his life, pose as a couple looking at the extravagant houses Bobbi loved as well. It takes all of Randall’s detective skills and the powers of both Camden and Kit to clear up the whole mess.

The fifth in Tesh’s psychic series (Just You Wait, 2015, etc.) is again more enjoyable for the odd mix of characters than the meager mystery.