Poltergeist by Kat Richardson

Not so much paranormal per se, as mystery with paranormal elements...

Like many of the reviewers here, I enjoyed the first book in the Greywalker series Greywalker. I found Poltergeist disappointing in the sense that the paranormal world at large wasn't explored quite the way I expected.

The blurb on the back cover essentially covers the book content of Poltergeist, which is focused on the factual Philip poltergeist experiment back in 1970s Toronto. Here, Harper is focused on finding out whether the poltergeist phenomenon in Zucker's experiment that parallels the Philip experiment in several ways is real, the cause behind the appearance of the poltergeist (real or not), and the underlying motivations of everyone who is involved with the project, from the participants themselves to those who monitor and observe the group.

Aside from Harper's attempts use the Grey to get to the root of the matter of the poltergeist, which lead her to explore the Grey a (very) little more, as well as to seek help from a witch and vampire (briefly), this story is essentially a straightforward murder mystery with quite a bit of historical background on the Philip experiment and the Seattle area. We see very little paranormal-type storyline outside of Harper's investigation of the poltergeist, and what there is of it is very limited. The vampires are pretty much a side note and Mara's witchcraft is mentioned cursorily. We do see Harper's interaction with some characters, including Quinton, Harper's tech expert; Brian, the child of Mara and Ben; and Phoebe, a used-bookstore owner whose family has essentially adopter Harper, but there's almost no mention of on/off lover Will, and Det Solis acts strictly the homicide cop. All else in Poltergeist leads down the road of who killed the lab assistant and why, and by what means.

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