Ghost Trouble — Richard Parks

"Eli Mothersbaugh is the top field agent for an under-funded, over-extended government organization known as the Bureau of Bio-Remnant Reconciliation. Set in an alternate near future where the existence of ghosts is an accepted scientific truth, it is Eli's job to help keep the living and the dead at peace with one another. Eli is physically sensitive to the energy fields that mark a ghost, but unfortunately he discovered his gift before the reality of ghostly manifestations was proven. When his parents, the two people he trusted most, nearly had him committed for psychiatric treatment, Eli was devastated and now makes it his mission to get to the true cause of any tension between the living and the dead, no matter where that truth might be hiding, or where the pursuit of it might lead." The first Eli Mothersbaugh story, "Wrecks," appeared in the British SF magazine Odyssey back in 2002. Since then, they've been published in such august venues as Asimov's SF and Realms of Fantasy. Here, for the first time, are gathered all twelve of the tales of the Bureau of Bio-Remnant Reconciliation, including five new stories that were written especially for this collection.