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Bitter Pill (PsyCop 11) by Jordan Castillo Price
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By Jordan Castillo Price
JCP Books, 2020
Five stars
My only complaint about the latest of the Psycop novels is my own inability to easily slip back into the story. Maybe it’s pandemic distraction (given when I read it, writing this review ten weeks into lockdown), but the Psycop books are complicated enough that my elderly brain has trouble reattaching to some of the details from prior volumes. That’s not the author’s fault � she does a great job of reminding us of all sorts of things from Victory Bayne’s messy past.
At the core of my love for these books now is Victor himself, and his husband-to-be Jacob Marks. Victor is the unheroic hero, a man who, finally, has a stronger sense of his own worth, but who still feels unworthy to some degree. He’s still a bit of a bumbler, but is aware of his own power. He is considerate and self-deprecating, but compassionate and oddly romantic. He doesn’t, however, feel unworthy of Jacob’s love. Their partnership � emotional and physical � roots me in these books. However messy and filled with new horrors from the unseen psychic world around them, they are solid � and this volume underscores that as its emotional anchor.
As Jacob and Victor find themselves actually working together on a new case, triggered by the emergence of a terrible new psyactive drug on the market, we get a close-up view of how Victor perceives Jacob � and indirectly how he is perceived by the man who loves him. The tone of the book � of the entire series, but especially now � is matter-of-fact and filled with dry humor. It’s sort of like Dragnet was on TV in the 1960s, except these cops represent a new kind of public protector (in so many ways!). It is Vic’s ironic sense of self that makes these books such a pleasure for me. Victor, Jacob and their colleagues know that what they do matters, but they don’t take themselves too seriously.
Throughout the story, through Victor’s mind, we revisit bits and pieces of his past � things we’ve experienced before but have largely forgotten. What we are reminded of as we read this story is that everything is connected. We are also reminded that Victor is something of a miracle by dint have having survived all he has, and we are grateful that he’s on our side.