Marianne Stillings, Arousing Suspicions

Arousing Suspicions

Marianne Stillings

Avon, Mar 2007, $5.99

ISBN: 0060850094

In San Francisco, respected business man Ed Figueroa complains to authorities that psychic dream interpreter Tabitha March is a con artist and solicitor. SFPD Inspector Nate Darling pretends to be her new client Nathan Damon. When they first meet both are stunned by the immediate attraction. When Nate tries his scam, Tabitha sees through his ruse and gives him insight into his life with his dad in Olympia while his two siblings lived with his divorced mom in San Francisco. After some miscommunication over her professional services to provide legal transcription not sex, he leaves.

Another new client Jack Griffin describes scenes of a murder in his dreams, which she "witnesses." Afterward Tabitha informs Nate what she saw in Jack's dreams; the hard evidence sleuth remains a skeptic, insisting she don't know Jack until she offers him details that only the killer or an associate would know besides the cops. As she slowly wins him over that she is the real deal, especially when she "sees" his last dream, they and his partner try to capture a serial killer, whom Nate assumes is Jack and Tabby thinks otherwise. Meanwhile, Nate falls fall in love with Tabby, who recognized him from his first visit as a client as her soulmate.

AROUSING SUSPICIONS is a fine paranormal romantic police procedural starring the skeptic and the psychic. Though the theme has been used many times over especially of late, Marianne Stillings writes a brisk entertaining story line filled with wonderful twists that involve Jack's dreams. Fans will appreciate this delightful tale as Nate turns from "I'm Not in Love" skeptic to "I'm a Believer".

Harriet Klausner