Better Read Than Dead

Psychic Eye Mysteries, Book 2

By: Victoria Laurie

Narrated by: Elizabeth Michaels

Length: 11 hrs and 2 mins

Publisher's summary

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?

©2005 Victoria Laurie (P)2009 Audible, Inc.

Excellent

I've read several books in this series and enjoyed them all. This one met my expectations to the max and beyond!

Wedding readings reveal Mob connections

Abby's world was a bit lonely with Dutch away at the training academy for the FBI. When he returns home, she has to postpone their big reunion to do a reading for a wedding where the bride was really looking forward to having two psychics. The original two got sick. They ask for a favor, and Abby and a friend attend the reception and take up their places doing readings. When Abby does her first one, it is of a man who has killed and hurt others. She becomes alarmed, but the man is very calm. She talks to her friend who has discovered that this is a Greek wedding put on by the head of the Greek Mafia!

They grab their things and run and keep running for the remainder of the book. Abby's friend goes on vacation leaving her to answer to the Mafia boss and father of the bride as to why they didn't deliver services for which they were paid in advance. She ends up returning the money for their half done reading, in double. That's after the Mafia goons kidnap her and bring her to the boss’s office. He is riddled with cancer; Abby can see mostly black in his aura, so he is close to death.

He lives long enough to make Abby's life hell between questioning her, chasing her, burning down her house, wrecking her car, and bringing in Dutch and the female agent playing his wife undercover who is tremendously jealous of Abby in real life. Then Abby's sister Cat visits and unfortunately meets the serial rapist hitting Boston. Finally Abby is sent on a search to find a person important to the Mafia boss, someone he would like to see before he dies.

This story had many funny moments. I think Victoria Laurie may have a sense of humor sneaking in behind her main story about a psychic and her FBI agent boyfriend. It was a bit difficult to take everything seriously, but maybe that was the point. Much of the humor was situational brought out by what was happening to the pair.

I still have a bit of trouble with the narrator sounding a bit old for the part. However, when Abby dealt with some older women, it became much less intrusive. I forgot about it after that. The narrator did do a good job with various accents and changes in gender of the characters and brought the story to life.

All in all, Abby and Dutch survive to find each other again even though she's feeling a bit hesitant about their relationship. When you've read all the twists and turns and stunts they go through for the Mafia, you'll know why!

Light Mysteries

Would you consider the audio edition of Better Read Than Dead to be better than the print version?

I don't have the Print version.

What did you like best about this story?

This is a light mystery that keeps ones interest.

Any additional comments?

I love the Psychic Eye Mysteries.

Thumbs up

So nice to find a book that no course language.
There is some Romance, some violence.
The narrator giving each character their own unique voice and I feel they do a good job. I suggest you listen to the sample hear the narrator voice
I enjoy the story.

Really enjoying this series

I began reading Victoria Laurie's work with The Ghost Hunter Series and I did like them and went through each, one after the other. Then, I began with the Abby Cooper, Psychic Eye Mysteries, and am enjoying them even more.

Having read the first book, Im now part way through the second in the series and know I will continue until Ive read them all.

I did notice in the first book that even though we have the same narrator her voice and inflections seemed older than Abby should have sounded as a woman in her thirties. She sounded almost as if reading a children's book. This was corrected by Elizabeth Michaels in the second book resulting in a great improvement giving me a fun and interesting listen.

Great writer - HORRIBLE narrator

Fantastic story! Horrible Narrator - she just read the book. Grating voice and awful tone.

delightful and funny

Murders and mayhem are not usually funny subjects, but this series is fun and light. I have enjoyed the psychic background- not usually something I go for. Wanted to listen to more right away.

Better Read Than Dead -Victoria Laurie

This is the 2nd book in the Psychic Eye Series by Victoria Laurie, and I'm not sure I'll read any more of them. Her main character, Abby, just makes silly decision after silly decision, and it gets really difficult to suspend disbelief enough to go along with most of them. For example, and there are some minor spoilers here, if your boyfriend is an FBI agent, and his best friend is a local cop, wouldn't you tell one or both of them, if you were being threatened by the mob??? And not veiled threats, either. They sent someone to her house to poison her dog and someone to wreck her car and frame her for the accident. But, no. She tells no one about any of this. She originally got into this mess because she agreed to help her friend Kendall do readings at a wedding after the original psychic backed out. During the wedding, they realized it was a mob wedding, so they got their stuff and ran. Really, that's your solution when you realize you're mixed up with the mob? Take their money and run? Brilliant. How shocking that they wanted their money back and got her mixed up into the rest of this mess.

The narration was ok. Some of it was the narrator (I got tired of hearing drop the final "r"s from words - mirror became mirra, terror became terra, etc.), and some of it was the story. The story is in 1st person; we're in Abby's head. We know if she's telling a lie. We don't need that "liar, liar, pants on fire" when she tells a lie. We know. It's constant, especially when the mob is after you and you're determined to keep it from the cops and FBI agents in your life. It set my teeth on edge every time I heard it. I can understand it when someone tells Abby a lie, and her intuition tells her they're lying, but we do NOT need it every time Abby tells one. There are a lot of repetitive phrases, and I think you notice them more when you're listening to the book. "Liar, liar, pants on fire" and "left side, feeling heavy", "right side, light and airy" over and over.

I also can't understand what was happening with Dutch, the FBI agent, and his new partner. Apparently the new (female) partner is extremely hot, so Abby gets drunk at lunch (from one glass of wine) and proceeds to act like a high schooler who just found her boyfriend eating lunch with the head cheerleader. Not only does she come across as immature and ridiculous, she makes Dutch look stupid, too, in front of a new partner who's also his superior. Abby acts like this every time the partner is even mentioned in conversation. Yes, she's able to psychically find out that the partner does want Dutch, but so what? She also knows Dutch doesn't want her, so where's the dilemma? And instead of telling Dutch how all of this makes her feel, she stamps her foot and says "she started it!" and pouts. I didn't love the way Dutch acted sometimes, I thought he was bullying Abby a lot of the time, but I can't really be on her side, either.

There was also a huge plot hole that bugged the crap out of me, and was never resolved. Spoiler - when Abby and Milo are watching the video of the attack on Cat, they see Cat on the phone talking to Abby, then Cat being attacked, then Cat being rescued. Completely ignoring the fact that her attacker spoke to her before he attacked her, without his mask, while she was on the phone with Abby. Abby heard Cat speaking to him "Oh, it's 11:15. Golly, Abby, men in this city sure are gorgeous", but he's not on the video of the attack. Why? Because Abby would have recognized him and ended that whole story line immediately. So instead, that whole part of the event is just ignored. I can't stand stuff like that.

I don't know if I'll keep going with this series or not. I might give it one more, because I like the concept, but if it's the same, I probably wouldn't go beyond that.

The reader ruins this book.

What didn’t you like about Elizabeth Michaels’s performance?

I liked the story and I like the character of Abby. However, Elizabeth Michaels's performance is so bad. I find the way she reads some of the lines (for example, "Liar, liar. Pants on fire.") particularly annoying. I'm going to have to go to the print version of the books to continue the series, because I just can't listen to her anymore.

Action Packed

I loved this book! I love reading about psychics and even more when there is a bit of romance.