Forgotten Bones: Dead Remaining, Book 1

Officer Susan Marlan of the Perrick, Calif., PD and science teacher Eric Evans, a high functioning schizophrenic, team up in this series launch from Barz (Montgomery’s Vampire series as Sloan Archer), an adequate paranormal police procedural. What starts as a simple car accident turns into something much more gruesome when a child’s badly decomposed body is found at the scene buried on land owned by a registered sex offender, Gerald Nichol. Since Nichol can’t be located, he quickly becomes the main, and only, suspect. The FBI takes over the case, pushing Marlan to the sidelines. A search of the property turns up the remains of more small children. Ignored by the FBI and warned to back off by her boss, Marlan nevertheless continues to search for answers. She’s aided by Evans, who seems to have a special rapport with the ghost of one of the victims, but is the small boy in the denim overalls haunting his dreams an apparition or a hallucination? Repetitive prose and overextended scenes slow the action. Mystery readers who like a little help from the great beyond will best appreciate this one. Agent: Paul Lucas, Janklow & Nesbit Assoc. (Aug.)