Book Review: Better Read Than Dead (Psychic Eye Mystery #2) by Victoria Laurie

Better Read Than Dead by Victoria Laurie
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I very much enjoyed the first book in this series (Psychic Eye), however, this book was somewhat of a disappointment.  Abby, the main character, comes across a little too dumb for her own good or just plain flaky.  She agrees to help out a fellow psychic with a wedding gig, only to find out part of the way through that it’s a mob wedding.  So, they bail.  Yes, they just leave the wedding.  Which, of course, brings them to the attention of the mob because, you know, they bailed on a gig for which they’d already been paid.  Or rather, friend had been paid, but he had a dispute with his significant other and headed out of state - with the money.  Through a series of events, Abby is then picked by the mob boss to be his new psychic and help him find his long missing wife and a successor to his fortune.

The side story is the police asking for help to find a rapist, then not listening to her, which of course proves fatal for the next victim.  Seriously, the cop all but begs for her help, then insist she’s wrong and they’re right.

What happens from here on is just a series of events that is just one bad thing after another.  Really, just one horrible thing after another piled onto Abby, who is hell bent on telling no one that the mob is terrorizing her into helping them.  Not only did I find a good part of the book implausible, but I really didn’t think anyone could be as naive (I’m tempted to say stupid, but am going with naive) as to try and handle things as Abby did.

Throw in a badly done romance with Dutch and another small story line that, in my opinion, really added nothing, and you have a book that just seemed to be never ending in it’s misery.

Everything, of course, is resolved and actually it all ties together, though it was a bit sloppy, and after the rest of the book seemed a bit rushed.  Naturally, everyone comes out okay in the end.  I’m not at all sure I’ll read the next book in this series as this one was just a bit over the top.


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