Review: Better Read Than Dead by Victoria Laurie

Title: Better Read Than Dead 

Author: Victoria Laurie 
Publisher: Signet

Publishing Date: June 7th 2005

Pages: 296
Genre: Adult Paranormal Cozy Mystery

Series:  Psychic Eye Mystery #2 
Source:  audio

 

Word of Abby's talents reading tarot cards has reached a mob boss who wants her help in some business matters and he doesn't take no for an answer. When the police seek out her psychic intuition to shed light on a masked man who's been attacking women, Abby finds herself working both sides of the law on her own, leading her to wonder, why didn't I see this coming?

I read the first book a bit ago and loved it. I was excited to read the second book and continue on with this series. The second book did not disappoint. I loved it. More danger, intense story, and some relationship issues. I really enjoyed the mob being involved in this story. I thought it was fun and pretty scary. It was a very exciting read.

Abby has a new boyfriend, some money stashed, and her business seems to be doing good. All is well until the storm hits. First Dutch has a new partner with his new job with the FBI. A good looking annoying blonde woman. Some jealousy comes through and a little bit of a rift forms between abbey and dutch. If that isn’t bad enough, Abby agrees to do some tarot reading at a wedding and finds she has read for a hit man and the wedding is for the daughter of a mob boss. Great. After bolting from the party early Abby gets a visit from the mob boss himself. She has to amend for leaving early and do a special reading… which leads to her becoming a notice to the mob boss. So he wants her to work for him, she says no, and this leads to a bunch of bad crap that leaves her in some pretty dangerous situations… oh and there is a serial rapist in her town and the cops won't listen to a word she has to say about the guy. So yup things are pretty bad for Abby.

There was so much going on in this book. I loved it. Not a slow moment at all. Between the serial rapist and the mob boss, Abby has her hands full. Of course, this is all happening when Dutch is on assignment with the FBI and is of no help at all. Not to mention she really doesn’t want to talk to him right now anyways. There is lots of action and lots of drama in this installment. Lots of fun readings too. I love the way her psychic ability works. Just love it. All the messes that Abby and also her sister get themselves into just makes the read so exciting.

Now I will say I love Abby, she is a quick-witted, smart, and pretty brave soul. She drove me nuts in this book though when it came to dutch. Dutch has made it know he wants her and her jealousy just is immature and gets in the way. I wanted to yell at her and say grow up… its his job, she is his partner. Leave it alone. But she never listened. She drove me insane. Even at this though I still love her character. I love how she leaves nothing alone. I love the loyalty she has to dog, her friends, and her town. I love that she sometimes goes running in head first. She thinks she has it under control and of course her spirit guides and ability helps but she still always ends up in trouble. I guess where would the story go if she didn’t

Dutch wasn’t in this book much and I did miss him, but her sister Kat was in the book more and I was introduced to a new friend that also has a physic ability, and of course, Dutch’s old partner Miles was in the story quite a bit too. So even though Dutch wasn’t around much there were plenty of characters to take up the slack. I did miss the romantic banter though.

I love this series and plan to read them all. I like to listen to them on audio because they are fast reads, my only complaint about the audio is the narrator sounds a little too old for Abby.

Great paranormal plus cozy mystery read. Can’t wait for more.

Victoria Laurie is the New York Times bestselling author of 30 books and counting. Victoria divides her time between her two adult mystery series, (The Psychic Eye Mysteries, and The Ghost Hunter Mysteries), and a Y/A thriller, When (Formerly titled Death Date), to be released in early January of 2015.
As a professional psychic, Victoria's protagonists - psychic Abigail Cooper, and spiritual medium M. J. Holliday - tackle the tricky world of the paranormal while fighting bad guys and demons with plenty of plucky humor and determination.
And using that keen understanding of the paranormal, Victoria also created the character of Maddie Fynn, a teenager with the unique intuitive ability to predict the exact date of someone's death.
To showcase her writing range, Victoria has also penned a children's epic adventure series, The Oracles of Delphi Keep.