Simon Canderous, book 1: Dead to MeAnton Strout2008

Welcome to the Department of Extraordinary Affairs Other Division--New York's answer to the underfunded world of paranormal investigation. It's a job caught up in red tape, memos, and office politics, but its becoming par for the course for recent recruit Simon Canderous. After a life of petty crime and twenty four years of watching his power of psychometry--the ability to divine information solely by touching an object--destroy any chance of a real relationship, he's joined the forces of Good hoping to gain some control. But when the mysterious ghost of a recently dead woman shows up at the Lovecraft Café, he and his mentor must figure out how she fits into a nefarious plot involving the cultists rights movement, a large wooden fish, and the forces of Darkness crushing on him.