Mass Market Notes

Readers intrigued by the supernatural and eager to spend some quality time with ghosts may be tempted to pick up Frances Kermeen's Ghostly Encounters: True Stories of America's Haunted Inns and Hotels, but this "guide" offers little that hasn't been covered more eloquently elsewhere. From floating, disembodied torsos to menacing, Chucky-like dolls, Kermeen, the former owner of a haunted antebellum mansion, has ostensibly seen and heard it all either firsthand or secondhand through other innkeepers and their guests. However, her clunky, cliché-ridden writing often mars the narration of these "sightings." When relaying one of her earliest encounters, for example, Kermeen writes: "In an instant, the room turned icy cold, and I felt terror in the air." Though this book's timely release and amusing premise will help it appeal to the Halloween crowd, readers would do better to pick up Dennis Hauck's Haunted Places: The National Directory. (Warner, $6.99 368p ISBN 0-446-61145-X)

The plot line of Tina Wainscott's paranormal mystery, Now You See Me, is similar to many other thrillers of this ilk, but its sensitive characterizations and incisive descriptions separate it from the pack. When Olivia Howe, a blind psychic, experiences a vision of a girl being kidnapped, she turns to the police, only to be rebuffed. Knowing they have a limited time to find the girl, Olivia appeals to Det. Max Callahan, the one man in the Palomera, Fla., police department who's willing to listen. It's inevitable that Olivia and Max will become lovers, but Wainscott (Unforgivable, etc.) cleverly keeps the suspense rolling by introducing a handful of red herrings and penning a number of chilling close calls and near encounters. Though Wainscott hasn't yet reached the popularity of Kay Hooper or Lisa Jackson, this intoxicating thriller is on par with those authors' best works. (St. Martin's, $6.99 352p ISBN 0-312-97909-6)