Now You See Her

January 3, 2005
Tishy's mystery thriller with a psychic twist introduces an engaging new heroine. Cast aside by her Chicago executive husband in favor of a trophy wife, Regina "Reggie" Cutter gets a new life in Boston, where she has inherited not only her Aunt Jo's South End townhouse but also her aunt's psychic abilities, which take the form of unusual pains in various parts of her body. While these pains aren't precise paranormal indicators, they're enough to get her asked by a realtor friend to check out a Back Bay mansion subject to unexplained manifestations; she's also appointed an unofficial consultant to Boston police detective Frank Devaney, whom her aunt assisted on occasion. Devaney is unsure of the guilt of a young black man who's serving a life sentence for a 13-year-old murder committed in a crack-infested building that's now an exclusive apartment house. The persistent Reggie tries everything from library research to visiting dangerous neighborhoods, baiting a charismatic preacher, hobnobbing with powerful politicians and badgering Devaney. Tishy does a good job conveying the feel of contemporary Boston, but one hopes she'll let Reggie rely more on her clairvoyant gifts than on unconvincing coincidence in future outings. Agent, Meredith Bernstein. (Feb. 24)

FYI:
Tishy is also the author of
Jealous Heart (1997) and two other Kate Banning mysteries.

January 1, 2005
Yes, Regina Cutter, newly transplanted to Boston, has psychic ability, but it won't manifest on cue, so she does plenty of old-fashioned legwork when she starts looking into the 13-year-old murder of a young man, for which someone may be wrongly imprisoned. In between visits to the murder site and talks with folks who lived nearby at the time, Reggie does her "real job"--working at a -resale-clothing store for cash-strapped women reentering the workplace--walks the Beagle she shares with a scruffy motorcycle enthusiast, R. K. Stark, who wants her to learn to ride, and plays ghost hunter in the house of a politically connected Bostonian. With just the right degree of psychic intercession, Tishy, author of the Kate Banning mystery series, neatly interweaves the disparate threads of her newly divorced, fortysomething protagonist's life. An appealing mix of foolish enthusiasm and derring-do, Reggie make a reasonably credible and quite likable amateur detective. Psychic intuition reveals that she will be back soon.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2005, American Library Association.)