Burning Water, Mercedes Lackey
A good catchall category for Lackey's Diana Tregarde series would be "mysteries with lots of magic." Diana is a romance novelist and a Witch; she is very good at solving mysteries with clues the mundane police just can't catch. In Burning Water, Diana's old friend, a Dallas police detective, calls her in as an advisor on the occult. Dallas is experiencing a wave of mass murders with very strange clues left behind. Mark (the detective) is slightly psychic, so he has a feeling about what's going on, but not the magickal experience to solve the crimes.
This was a pretty good read. It works better as a study of character and setting than as a mystery, however. The first few chapters should tip the reader off to the identity of the murderer. Lackey writes in a way that creates great sympathy in the reader towards the main characters. She also is pretty good at showing their flaws. As for the witchcraft end of things, I don't know enough about the Craft to determine if the author got the details right. I know the portrayal of Dallas is correct as to the weather, but the characterization of the police chief bugged me. He sounds like something out of The Dukes of Hazzard, with the Southern accent and all. I always have had a problem with writers representing dialect and accents with different styles of writing. The chief is the only character portrayed that way.
I recommend this book as a good escape. If you're looking for an earth-shattering experience or great literature, you won't find it here. The thing that would have made this book perfect would have been a big long car chase, like in an old '70s cop show, but that didn't happen. Too bad. :o)