What Makes Gifted an Interesting Supernatural Action Thriller for Crime Fiction Fans?

Imagine knowing what someone is hiding before they open their mouth. Sounds useful, doesn’t it? Now imagine growing up surrounded by people whose secrets could put your family in danger.

That’s the uncomfortable thrill at the heart of Gifted by Walter Strychowskyj. It’s a story where criminal ambition, family ties, and an unusual mind keep colliding.

It’s a supernatural action thriller with an unsettling criminal edge.

A Gift You Wouldn’t Dare Mention at Dinner

Wally Kozak can remember everything he sees. More unsettling still, physical contact can let him explore another person’s memories and thoughts.

A handshake could uncover a lie. A greeting might reveal a threat.

Yet Wally’s grandmother gives him a warning that stays with him: such an ability can be a blessing or a curse. His family teaches him discipline, meditation, and Cossack dancing, encouraging restraint rather than spectacle.

Wally isn’t a caped savior. He’s trying to live with knowledge he cannot explain. Would you reveal such a secret?

A Crime Fiction Family With Two Very Different Futures

Before Wally’s abilities take center stage, the book opens in a small Ukrainian village and follows Maria Kozak’s family to New York.

A new city offers work, opportunity, and the chance to begin again. But Danelo Klyn, Maria’s partner, is drawn toward something far less respectable: the money and influence of the drug trade.

The contrast is sharp. Maria’s family works to care for people through its naturopathic clinic. Meanwhile, Danelo sees how quickly fear can become a business strategy. His brothers bring connections that make the criminal world even more dangerous.

Affection and ambition share the same rooms. But relatives don’t always share a conscience.

What will family loyalty mean to Wally?

Where Supernatural Thriller Books Meet Dirty Politics

The danger in Gifted doesn’t come from a mysterious creature lurking in the dark. It comes from recognizable human appetites: greed, control, revenge, and the hunger for power.

Drug networks spread their influence. People with official titles aren’t always trustworthy. And the closer criminal interests move toward legitimate institutions, the harder it becomes to tell who is protecting whom.

Wally’s powers add a complication. He may know something that others would kill to conceal. But knowing the truth is not the same as being able to prove it.

Wally may know exactly what someone is hiding, but he can’t simply walk into court and say he read their mind. He needs proof, and getting it can land him in trouble.

His gift helps him find out who is lying and what they’re up to. The problem is deciding how to use that information without putting himself in danger.