The Clairvoyant of Calle Ocho

Fans of Carolyn Haines and Charlaine Harris will delight in this debut mystery from Delgado (The Heartbreak Pill). Mariela Estevez-Valdez—one part Helen Gurley Brown and one part Sookie Stackhouse—thinks marriage is for the birds, and wants to have affairs only with married men. When her ex-lover Hector Ferro winds up dead on a sidewalk in Miami’s Little Havana, Mariela falls under suspicion and has to get to the bottom of his death to clear her name. Mariela decides to rely on her clairvoyance, which she hasn’t used in years, to solve the case, adding a fresh twist to an overly familiar plot device. With the chatty prose of chick lit, a sassy girlfriend narrator, and a self-help cheerleading attitude (“The secret to talking to the dead is... your belief that you can do it”), it doesn’t take a psychic to predict that this fun novel will be a hit. Agent: Andy Ross, Andy Ross Agency. (Sept.)