The Drowning Pool-Jacqueline Seewald

The Drowning Pool
Jacqueline Seewald
Five Star, Feb 2009, $25.95
ISBN 9781594147555

In Webster’s Township, New Jersey police detective Lieutenant Mike Gardner is assigned the investigation of womanizer Rick Bradshaw, who was found dead in his apartment complex swimming pool. Mike is mentoring former NYPD cop with a chip Bert St. Croix on the inquiry, which takes place in la Reine Gardens where his girlfriend psychic librarian Kim Reynolds lives.

They quickly learn the victim was stabbed to death before being dumped into the pool. There are plenty of suspects, women who he loved and left, and their cuckolded men. Rick, a single father raising two children, has Kim help him with the case. With no progress, Rick and Bert arrange an encounter at the DROWNING POOL between all the suspects with Kim in attendance as an observer.

THE DROWNING POOL is an entertaining romantic police procedural with psychic elements that are not used until the final confrontation unlike what happened in THE INFERNO COLLECTION. Although the investigation bogs down with no progress, sub-genre fans will enjoy the relationships between Kim and Mike, him and his kids, and especially him with Bert; whereas he uses brains and psychology, she carries a chip and guilt on her big body while preferring brawn.

Harriet Klausner