Mind Games

Justine Jones is certain she is about to die. A committed hypochondrap, she expects a blood vessel in her brain to burst at any moment, and she has told no one how bad the fear is.

Then a strikingly handsome man named Packard looks straight into her and offers her a place on his private crime-fighting team. With his hands-on training, she can turn her neurosis outward and use it against the worst criminals in Midcity. In return, she gets the release from fear she has always wanted.

Her first missions go well, among them a case against a husband-killer with a sexual compulsion. Meanwhile a police chief in Midcity is struggling against outlaws who have powers beyond the human. Justine is drawn toward two very different men, and Packard turns out to be hiding more than he shows.

This is urban fantasy with a paranormal romance streak, mixing wizardry, eroticism and cosmic secrets. The tone is wry and the pace quick, with a heroine whose anxiety is both her weapon and her weakness. The deeper she goes, the more the world she has joined threatens to be worse than anything she feared.