The Ascending

Over an eight-year span, people have been getting killed, gutted and stuffed in the ceiling spaces of ultra-high rise landmark buildings in Chicago, New York and now Toronto. In this latest installment in the adventures of psychic detective Ryerson Biergarten--some of which Wright ( Goodlow's Ghosts ) has published in paperback under the pseudonym ``F. W. Armstrong,''--Ryerson wants to help the Toronto cops nail the killer, but homicide detective Dan Creed is unhappy with the psychic's most recent work and won't officially assign him to the case. With the moral support of his sock-chewing Boston Bull terrier, however, as well as with the reluctantly accepted help of a pesky self-proclaimed psychic and would-be partner, Ryerson gradually realizes that his recent onrush of psychic messages point to one suspect--and not the one whom Creed has pegged as the killer. Unfortunately, the escalating tension of the murders and of the search for the killer--which culminates in a harrowing scene at Toronto's CN tower--is rewarded with a strange and unclear payoff, one involving the fate of the killer and the spirit that has possessed him for years. Nevertheless, Wright convincingly proves that he understands, as few do, how to give a scare without spilling blood all over the page. (July)