Scarlett Dean, Invisible Shield

Invisible Shield

Scarlett Dean

Five Star, Apr 2007, $25.95

ISBN: 1594145458

Her partner Gerard Alvarez tells Lindsay Frost that Buford Jones was released from prison after a drug bust failed. When the guilty verdict was pronounced Buford threatened Lindsay for she was instrumental in taking him down. When an anxious Lindsay enters her home, she sees nothing disturbing so she relaxes. Not long afterwards, she watches the police looking at her naked body in the bathtub as the cops officially declare suicide, but Gerald and her sister, police officer Kate Frost believe otherwise.

Lindsay soon meets other spirits like herself who have unfinished business to attend to on the mortal plane or have things to learn about their new existence. The only person who can see or hear Lindsay is Kate. Rivals in life, the sisters agree to team up to find Lindsay's killer, but the deceased sibling has bigger issues than uncovering her murderer. Lindsay battles an evil spirit bent on eliminating her entirely while Kate struggles with her superiors who demand she drop the case.

INVISIBLE SHIELD is a superb, paranormal police procedural that focuses on two sisters who are so eerily alike in life and were competitors pushing one another to excel while in death they find common ground. Lindsay makes friends and enemies in limbo with some allies saving her after-life when her spirit stalker tries to snuff her light out. There is plenty of action on both sides of the veil between the living and the dead as Scarlett Dean creates a marvelous mystical mystery.

Harriet Klausner