The PsyCop series
by Jordan Castillo Price is quickly becoming some of my favorite books. I just
finished books 2 & 3, so thought I’d review them together. Here goes!
Criss Cross
Criss Cross finds the
ghosts surrounding Victor getting awfully pushy. The medications that Victor
usually takes to control his abilities are threatening to destroy his liver,
and his new meds aren't any more effective than sugar pills.
Vic is also adjusting
to a new PsyCop partner, a mild-mannered guy named Roger with all the
personality of white bread. At least he's willing to spring for the Starbucks.
Jacob's ex-boyfriend,
Crash, is an empathic healer who might be able to help Victor pull his powers into
balance, but he seems more interested in getting into Victor’s pants than in
providing any actual assistance.
The thing I like about this series is how unique it is. The
writing is witty and inventive. I just love the world that the author has
built. Victor is an unlikely hero. He is a mess, literally and figuratively,
and he has a bit of a drug problem. Sometimes I have a hard time picturing him
doing any actual police work. But somehow it works!
Jacob, on the other hand, is the very definition of Hero
with a capital “H”. I don’t know why, but I was suspicious of him in the first
book. He is just too perfect, too much of a police department Golden Boy. My
opinion of Jacob has changed a lot through this book. I don’t know what I read
in the first book that raised a red flag with me, but it’s gone now. Jacob can’t
help it if he is a good guy. Victor desperately needs someone to love him like
Jacob does. And he obviously has good taste in men, because I loved Crash as
much as I love Victor. (Please tell me Crash gets his own story.)
The plot of this story is fast-paced. The ghosts around
Victor are creepy and obnoxious. The humor is smart. What’s not to love?
Body and Soul
Thanksgiving can't end
too soon for Victor Bayne, who's finding Jacob's family hard to swallow.
Luckily, he's called back to work to track down a high-profile missing person.
Meanwhile, Jacob tries
to find a home they can move into that's not infested--with either cockroaches,
or ghosts. As if the house-hunting isn't stressful enough, Vic's new partner
Bob Zigler doesn't seem to think he can do anything right. A deceased junkie
with a bone to pick leads Vic and Zig on a wild chase that ends in a basement
full of horrors.
The opening scene with Victor in small-town Wisconsin having
Thanksgiving dinner was hilarious! And creepy. And hilariously creepy.
So now Victor is trying to function without his spirit-suppressing
drugs, but the constant chatter from noisy ghosts might just make him go
insane. I feel for Victor, because like a lot of people, he can’t seem to find
a balance between using and abusing prescription medication. For years he has over
medicated as a way to cope. Now he is trying to cut the meds out cold-turkey.
Poor Victor.
The cool thing about this book is we get to see Victor act a
little more like a police officer. He carries a gun and everything. Not that he
didn’t in prior books, but it felt more like a prop before. He also can’t use
Lisa’s si-no as a crutch anymore
either. This leaves good old-fashioned police work to solve a missing persons
case with a gruesome ending.
Speaking of endings, Body
and Soul ends with the most romantic scene yet. Beautiful!
Plot - 5
bookmarks
Character development
- 5 bookmarks (Packs a lot into novella length books.)
Love/Sex - 5
bookmarks (Getting more romantic as the books go on.)
Humor - 5
bookmarks (These books actually make me laugh. Not an easy feat.)
Dream cast (otherwise
known as who I pictured while reading) - Matthew Gray Gubler (Victor),
Channing Tatum (Jacob), Michelle Rodriguez (Lisa), Cherry Jones (Carolyn), Boyd
Holbrook (Crash)
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