Victor Bayne, psychic medium and reluctant PsyCop detective, is exactly the kind of protagonist paranormal crime fiction has needed more of. Jordan Castillo Price's Among the Living, the first entry in the long-running PsyCop series, arrives as an audiobook narrated by Gomez Pugh at just under three hours, and in that compact runtime it establishes a world, a cast, a procedural hook, and a romantic dynamic that has sustained more than a dozen subsequent volumes. Victor solves murders by interviewing the ghosts of victims, which is a useful talent in a world where psychics have been formally integrated into law enforcement. The problem with the current case is that this killer is not leaving any spirits behind, which means Victor's primary investigative tool is useless and he is left using the conventional detective skills he has spent his career carefully avoiding building.
The setup is economical in the way that best-practice genre fiction tends to be: Price gives you enough world-building to orient without stalling for exposition, enough character interiority to invest in Victor without overdeveloping him past what a first volume can support, and a romantic subplot, Victor's hookup with handsome non-psychic detective Jacob Marks from an adjacent precinct, that functions as emotional counterweight to the procedural tension. The content warning about explicit adult content is accurate; the book includes explicit scenes that are integral to the Victor-Jacob dynamic rather than incidental. That relationship, and the slow negotiation of two very different kinds of professional identity within it, becomes the series' emotional spine as subsequent volumes develop it.
What Jordan Castillo Price Gets Right
Gomez Pugh's narration fits Victor's voice with specific accuracy. Price writes Victor with a particular register, careful, slightly wary, accustomed to flying under the radar in a world that officially recognizes his abilities but culturally still does not quite know what to do with gay psychic cops. Pugh gives Victor a quality that reads as genuinely guarded rather than generically reluctant, which matters for a character whose main professional and personal strategy is minimizing attention in a job that constantly generates it. The distinction between guarded and reluctant sounds subtle, but in a first-person narrator it is the difference between a character you are curious about and one you are waiting to exit.
One reviewer described the PsyCop series as full of mystery, romance, laughter, and thrills, with character development that builds impressively across subsequent volumes. The audio format suits the series structure particularly well, each PsyCop entry is short enough that building a listening habit around them is sustainable, and the character and world consistency across narration makes the longer arc rewarding to follow in sequence. Pugh's performance carries Victor's distinct anxious competence consistently enough that returning to him across multiple volumes feels like reconnecting with a familiar voice rather than re-orienting to a new one. Another reviewer noted how unusual it was to find paranormal romance with gay characters at the center, which was accurate in the genre's earlier years and remains a genuine point of distinction even now.
Where Jordan Castillo Price Loses Some Ground
At three hours, this audiobook is a series opener and functions fully as one. Price is establishing foundations rather than delivering a complete arc, the Victor-Jacob relationship is at its most tentative, the PsyCop world is being introduced rather than developed, and the serial killer case resolves within this volume while leaving larger questions about Victor's abilities, his history, and the world's integration of psychics into professional structures open for the series to address. Listeners who prefer complete, self-contained stories will want to approach this with the understanding that the most satisfying experience of PsyCop comes from the series rather than the individual volumes.
The explicit content is integrated into the story rather than isolated as a separate element, and Victor's sexuality is neither incidental nor the totality of his character, he is a gay man who is also a working detective with professional anxieties and a complicated relationship with his own abilities, and Price gives all of those dimensions equal attention. The world in which psychics are employed by law enforcement but remain objects of social uncertainty is sketched efficiently here and expanded in subsequent volumes into one of the more interesting world-building premises in the paranormal crime subgenre.
One thing the first PsyCop volume does particularly well is establish the internal logic of a world where psychics are bureaucratically integrated into law enforcement without losing the social weirdness of what that actually means in practice. Victor has official sanction and colleagues who depend on his ability, but the culture around him still has not fully normalized what he is. That tension, being useful and discomfiting simultaneously, being credentialed and still somehow suspect, gives the world a texture that persists across the series and makes it more interesting than a simpler psychic-cop premise would be. Price understands that worldbuilding is not about the rules; it is about how the rules change people's daily lives, and that understanding is evident even in this three-hour opener.
Who Should Pick Up Among the Living
This audiobook is for listeners who want paranormal crime fiction with a gay protagonist at its center and who are comfortable with explicit romantic content. If the PsyCop world sounds appealing, psychic integration into law enforcement, a ghost-interviewing detective who just wants to stay under the radar, a growing romance with a non-psychic partner who sees Victor more clearly than Victor sees himself, the first volume is the right place to start, and the payoff accumulates across the series.
Listeners looking for a complete, fully resolved standalone experience in under three hours will find the volume functional but partial, this is world-building and character setup more than it is a fully resolved narrative. The serial killer case closes, but the characters are just beginning. Come for the opening; plan to stay for the series, because Pugh's narration and Price's world make that investment easy to justify.
The Short Version
- Read by: Gomez Pugh gives Victor Bayne the guarded, careful quality the character needs, understated rather than performed, which serves the series' accumulative emotional investment.
- At its heart: psychic law enforcement, gay romance, serial murder without witnesses
- Vibe: Low-key and atmospheric, building tension through character anxiety more than external action
- Short version: A strong series opener that rewards commitment to the longer PsyCop arc, the compact runtime establishes a distinctive world worth following across subsequent volumes.
Is Among the Living audiobook a complete story or does it end on a cliffhanger?
The serial killer case is resolved within this volume, but the PsyCop world and the Victor-Jacob relationship are clearly established for a longer series. It functions as a satisfying series opener with a complete procedural plot, though listeners who want deeper resolution of all threads will find more of that in subsequent volumes.
Is this audiobook appropriate for listeners who do not typically read explicit content?
The book includes explicit adult scenes between Victor and Jacob. This is noted clearly in the product description. Listeners who prefer their romance fade-to-black or non-explicit should be aware that the content goes further than that.
How well does Gomez Pugh's narration work for the PsyCop audiobook series?
Consistently well. Pugh gives Victor a distinct, slightly wary vocal quality that suits the character's professional strategy of minimizing attention, and that consistency across volumes is part of what makes the series work in audio format. Returning to the same narrator for a long-running series creates the kind of character familiarity that builds listener investment over time.
Can I jump into the PsyCop series at a later volume or should I start with this audiobook?
Start here. Jordan Castillo Price builds character development and world-building cumulatively across the PsyCop series, and Victor's growth as a character is part of the long-arc payoff. Jumping in mid-series means missing the foundation that makes later volumes more rewarding.
