Principles of Spookology

Principles of Spookology (2020) S.E. Harmon (The Spectral Files)

Rain Christiansen is back home, working with his partner Daniel McKenna in the newly created PTU, an offshoot of the cold crimes unit, except that they get their leads through the cold cases through Rain’s talking with ghosts.

Unfortunately, the ghosts won’t leave Rain alone, and their requests for help keep getting more demanding, and it’s wearing more and more on Rain–and for Daniel, with whom Rain is all but living right now.

The best part of this story is the snarkiness.

“Do you know what time it is?” I had a vague idea.

“No.”

“It’s three in the morning,” he said before involving my Echo. “Alexa, what time is it?”

“The time is three oh four a.m.,” she agreed.

Oh, she was ripe for a date with a sink full of water.

One of the threads of the story is how Rain needs to learn to deal with his powers as a bridge. That the ghosts are slowly destroying his life, but getting help means truly admitting that he has this power he never wanted.

Also, this is akin to my experience with meditation.

Feel the energy coursing through your body, opening you up like a flower,” he said. “Focus on opening. You’re a flower. A beautifully open flower.”

I’m a flower. I closed my eyes in concentration as I thought about that. My stomach rumbled in warning as I caught a hint of sugar and butter in the air. No, you’re not hungry, you’re a flower. Although I suppose flowers do get hungry. Isn’t that what the whole photosynthesis thing is all about?

The mystery here was a little more problematic, because I was never quite certain why Rain thought that group of ghosts were connected. After all, he gets lots of ghostly visitors, so it was never clear to me what tied those deaths together in his mind.

But it was a fun and enjoyable story.
Rating: 7.5/10

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