Lorraine Bartlett
Author Lorraine (or LL) Bartlett writes the thoroughly enjoyable Booktown mystery series, a definite must-read for cozy fans. However, she has a lesser-known series that is, in many ways, more compelling.
Bartlett’s Jeff Resnick series follows a former insurance adjuster, now part-time bartender. After a nearly fatal mugging, he goes to live with his wealthy older brother and wife. The damage from the beating of the mugging starts triggering strange visions for Resnick. He gets flashes of intuition, brief glimpses into horrible crimes and uncomfortable insights into other people’s thoughts and feeling. This is not an aerie-fairie “supernatural” series, where something magical or unreal is shoehorned into a mystery book to attract more readers.* Bartlett presents a wholly believable (and often unpleasant) look of what a real person would do and how they’d react on suddenly having unwanted windows into other people and places thrust on them. Definitely not cozy, but gripping and intriguing.
*Charlaine Harris comes to mind in this vein. Her previous books before Sookie Stackhouse were excellent.