Call of the Mild is the third of 5 books written by William Rabkin based on the television series Psych. The book was published in 2010.
After a schoolteacher named Ellen Svaco is killed over a mysterious locket, Henry, Lassiter, Juliet, and Chris Rasmussen of the Isla Vista Foot Patrol end up on the case to find her killer – with the understanding that Shawn will NOT get involved. While doing a little investigating of their own to at least recover the necklace, Psych is hired by Oliver Rushton, a wealthy attorney, to investigate the recent death of one of his firm’s employees. The best place to investigate and catch the guilty party will be on the firm’s bonding retreat – a multi-day backpacking trip through some of the most remote mountains in California. Shawn and Gus are hardly experienced with roughing it, but they accompany the group as best they can. The stakes are raised, however, when one of the other hikers turns up dead with a knife in his chest. Shawn and Gus need to find the killer among them – and fast – or they may not make it out of the woods alive…
This book includes examples of the following tropes:
- Amoral Attorney: Reginald Balowsky is an ethically dubious opportunist, and Gwendolyn Shrike is aggressive and unpleasant, (though both of them work well within the law), but the worst is the Big Bad of the book, a spy named Jade Greenway who’s been bumping off anyone who could trace her actions back to her.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Jade Greenway is shy, demure, and soft-spoken in public, and easily the least fearsome of her coworkers… but it’s all an act, and she’s really a spy who is more than willing to kill to keep her secrets.
- But for Me, It Was Tuesday: Henry was roped into playing Officer Friendly at a school during his time on the force, an experience he largely forgot about afterwards. For one kid he spoke to, Rasmussen, it was a major event that sent him on the course in life that led him to the Isla Vista Foot Patrol.
- Dreaming of Things to Come: Gus has had a recurring nightmare for years of being lost in the wilderness and running off a high cliff. As the events of the book unfold, he begins to freak out as things start looking more and more horribly familiar… and it gets worse when Shawn reveals he’s had a similar dream, of being in such a situation and being unable to identify a killer.
- Dwindling Party: The killer in the group in the mountains starts quietly bumping off everyone one by one; Mathis suffers an Instant Death Stab, Greenway is pushed off a cliff, Savage is Caught in a Snare that smashes his head against a tree trunk…
- Eco-Terrorist: The hiking group seems to be kidnapped by a team of them on the second day of the hike, but it turns out to be just a group of actors hired by Rushton as part of the retreat.
- Enemy Mime: A fellow dressed as a mime mugs Shawn and Gus for everything they have, including their clothes. It turns out to be Crazy Enough to Work, as nobody takes them seriously when he forces them into the public bathroom and takes their things, and the makeup, gloves, and beret mean they can’t see any identifying characteristics.
- Green and Mean: The spy and murderer Jade Greenway has a taste for wearing lots of green.
- Horrible Camping Trip: The "retreat" is this: Shawn, Gus, and five attorneys from the same firm are helicoptered onto a remote mountaintop in the Sierra Nevada range near Mt. Whitney, then left with enough clothes and supplies for the multi-day hike to the lodge at the base of the mountain. Worse, only one person has a map – and the map-owner is forbidden from telling anyone else they have it, meaning they have to work as a team to move. Things go very badly when the rules start changing, they get held hostage and terrorized by (what turns out to be) an acting troupe, and that’s BEFORE the killer starts actually bumping them off one by one…
- Hostage Situation: Rasmussen ends up taking Rushton hostage in a desperate attempt to get him to talk. It ends with Rushton released when Henry talks him down, and Rasmussen in SBPD custody.
- I Never Said It Was Poison: How Shawn realizes Jade was the culprit: she welcomed them as the firm’s new in-house detectives just before Rushton introduced them as such, meaning she recognized the people who were after her.
- Jurisdiction Friction: Chris Rasmussen of the Isla Vista Foot Patrol gets in an argument with Lassiter of the SBPD when a body is found in Isla Vista. He relents when Shawn offers to have Henry work on the case with him.
- Know Your Vines: The Descanso Public Gardens where the locket was initially dropped off is suffering from a major Poison Oak infestation. An unfortunate bunch of kids on a field trip learned about it the hard way.
- Literal Cliffhanger: Gus ends up dangling over a cliff edge in the climax, with Greenway trying to knock him off, and Shawn trying to save him.
- Loophole Abuse: Henry demands that Shawn stay off the Svaco murder investigation as long as he and Lassiter are working on it. Shawn does so, but keeps investigating the situation by virtue of staying on his initial investigation: looking for Ellen’s missing necklace.
- Mundane Solution: While searching the gardens for Ellen’s locket at the beginning – where she probably lost it in a field of poison oak – Shawn immediately goes to the Lost and Found, rather than hunting all over the field. Sure enough, he finds it there.
- Naked People Are Funny: After the Mime steals their clothes and leaves them both in the public restrooms at a public garden, Shawn and Gus are in quite a predicament.
- Never Found the Body: Jade Greenway fakes her death by pretending to go off a high cliff into a river when the party has largely separated. In reality, she tossed some of her green clothes into the river, then went into hiding from the group.
- The Nicknamer: Gus gives the five attorneys nicknames based on their body language and appearance before learning their real names: the forceful and beautiful Gwendolyn Shrike is nicknamed Kiri, the muscular and tanned Kirk Savage is Doc Savage, the scheming and somewhat predatory-looking Reginald Balowsky is Captain Hook, the green-clad and unassuming Jade Greenway is Tinkerbell, and the passionate and outspoken Morton Mathis is Shatner.
- No Hero to His Valet: Rasmussen initially hero-worships Henry Spencer, seeing him as his main inspiration for becoming a Law Enforcement Officer in the first place. Shawn, of course, has a decidedly more evenhanded view of the man.
- Old Cop, Young Cop: Retired cop Henry and eager young foot patrol officer Rasmussen team up to help investigate the Svaco case. The former is the latter’s personal hero, and he’s initially overjoyed to work with Henry… this doesn’t last.
- Poor Communication Kills: Mathis slips away from the group with Shawn, and holds him at gunpoint until Gus sneaks up behind him and subjects him to a Tap on the Head with a rock. Except it turns out Mathis is an FBI agent who’s trying to warn Shawn off the case.
- Warts and All: Rasmussen is deeply dismayed that Henry is willing to lie and bend the law – and quite a bit at that – to get answers, especially since he’s technically a private citizen now. When he runs into some of the grimmer aspects of law enforcement in general, Rasmussen has a very hard time adjusting. Later, Henry feels this way about Shawn when it turns out Rasmussen couldn’t handle his more ethically dubious actions, and Henry realizes that for all his flaws, Shawn does have a sense of proportion that’s served him well.
