Better Read Than Dead

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.

GREAT Series!

Once I start listening to one of the books in this series, I have to finish it. That includes listening at work, staying up late at night, driving around extra distances or parking in the driveway. I started with Abby Cooper Psychic Eye and have been reading in the series order, I feel each of these books will easily stand alone, but reading in order is helpful. The author does do an excellent job of filling in the information about past books happenings, but NOT in a repetitive way that's like a cut and paste of whole sections from previous books. Also, love the fact that young adults could read these, because violent scenes are not not gruesome and there aren't any graphic sex-capades. Don't get me wrong, I love a good Harlequin romance as well as the next girl might, it's just refreshing to read a funny, entertaining, clean book with a plot that isn't dependent on the main characters jumping in an out of sex scenes in between finding dead bodies.
I love the narrator and find her completely capable of the various characters required and much more enjoyable than the narrator used for the Sue Grafton Series. I am now up to book 7 and can't wait to hear her other series starting with the first book: What's a Ghoul to Do?
I highly recommend all of Victoria Laurie's books, I'm glad I didn't listen to the bad reviews!

7 of 7 people found this review helpful

Silly Girl

Abby Cooper is a psychic with a knack for accidently stumbling into criminal investigations with the local police department. This is the second book in the series and second one I've read.

It's been a while since I read the first book and I decided to give this one try. Now I remember why I didn't immediately reach for the second one in the series after finishing the first. Here it is: I don't like Abby Cooper. If I had known her in real life, I would have run like a deer from her. She's selfish, whiny and not terribly bright. For someone who refers to herself as an "intuitive" she uses astonishingly bad judgment in her own affairs. It's too bad too, because the plots are interesting and the author does a good job of ratcheting up the suspense. But, as Abby runs headlong into danger without looking both ways, I find myself wishing that someone would kill her. At a minimum, I amazed that no one has.

While the narrator does an adequate job, her voice doesn't match the young, immature Abby Cooper. In any case, the is the last book in the series I will read.

5 of 5 people found this review helpful

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.

14 of 16 people found this review helpful

Abby>>> you go girl

really enjoyed the listen. The car fire reminded me of the stephine plum car issue. I have started listening to both series abby and ghoul series. They both area really easy fast listens. Matter of fact, several times I had to sit in the truck to finish some of the story line before I could get out. Keep them coming.

8 of 9 people found this review helpful

Not my cup of tea, ridiculous

Is there anything you would change about this book?

Yes. Who turns down two million dollars from their share of lotto winnings when they are broke? Within one day she can not pay her contracter and is extorted. She has a job that pays willy nilly.
If the mob threatens you because you won't do a psychic reading, they are not going to just quit. If you are being followed everyday and your dog is poisoned wouldn't you get ahold of your FBI boyfriend or best friend cop.
If you are doing a psychic reading and you see that the guy has murdered multiple people, you wouldn't yell out that you know he has murdered. Most people would say I don't see anything or say something benign.
Stupid
Predictable

Has Better Read Than Dead turned you off from other books in this genre?

I keep trying supernatural stories. Very few are well thought out, developed plots and characters. I would love to find some books like Jeanine Frost, Jim Butcher or Deborah Harkness

What three words best describe Elizabeth Michaels’s performance?

She was okay.

Was Better Read Than Dead worth the listening time?

Not for me.

3 of 3 people found this review helpful

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.

3 of 3 people found this review helpful

Didn't enjoy

Personally, I found the lair lair pants on fire annoying. Also, some of the explanations about her gift got to feel like she was talking to a grade school kid.

3 of 3 people found this review helpful

Annoying to the end

What could have made this a 4 or 5-star listening experience for you?

A Grown Up Writer

Would you ever listen to anything by Victoria Laurie again?

Not a Chance

What about Elizabeth Michaels’s performance did you like?

She did a great job with the story with which she had to work.

What character would you cut from Better Read Than Dead?

The main character whose favorite line was "Liar liar pants on fire" Come on!

Any additional comments?

I really wanted to like this book - honest. I tried. I thought it might be fun to suspend disbelief and enjoy a book about psychic this and that, but I never dreamed a writer could, from start to finish write such adolescent predictable junk. The lead character repeated the phrase "liar liar pants on fire," every time she told one, just in case the reader was too stupid to figure it out. And she seemed to only be able to recognize "hunks" or really mean men in the world - two classes of men. (Grow up much?) Her jealousy about her hunkish FBI boyfriend would have driven even the dumbest guy to oblivion, but somehow he was too smitten by this moronic (self proclaimed good looking) woman to run in the opposite direction. And the rest of the female characters were also stereotypical dopes.

So, what's to like?

The story line had all kinds of twists and turns that never came together without super glue that relied on so much conspiring on the part of you/me the reader to accept a juvenile plot that by the end I felt nauseous. And that had nothing to do with her psychic abilities saving the day! Really, I don't think this author ever did any research about the world of mystics, Tarot or anything that supposed psychics actually believe. She just made up some dribble, through in a bunch of teenage fantasy with characters who were too old to be aging so stupidly and published a book. I'm wondering why this one made it to Audible.

This is the first book I've reviewed on audible, having read 100's but I felt like saving intelligent readers from my fate. I read it to the end waiting for the saving grace.
At least the dog, "Eggg" was smart enough not to drink the poision. Sorry to spoil the plot for you. I hate it when dogs are harmed in a story. But he was probably the only smart character in the book. So...

6 of 7 people found this review helpful

cheap . . . but not cheap enough

I bought this on a whim because it was on sale, but I wouldn't have finished it if I were paid to read it. The doughty heroine is a wretched amalgam of teen angst and New Age conceit, and manages to convert the truly awful things happening to her clients into yet more reason to obsess over her own personal melodramas. The narrator is too old a voice for the character, but along with the author can still not distinguish between the silliness of the premise and the seriousness of the plot events . . . which end up being merely a platform to inflate the very hollow protagonist yet further . . .

2 of 2 people found this review helpful

Stalked by the mob

In the first book we were introduced to Abby and in this book we get to know her better. I expected we get to know her romantic interest Dutch as well, but instead we learn more about his ex-partner Milo.

I liked it more than the first book since the character is more developed and the plot more interesting. Also at the beginning "lair lair pants on fire" rant was really annoying especially when you are listening to the audiobook but you get used to it. When you hear that you know people are lying.

5 of 6 people found this review helpful

easy listen

easy listen with a psychic theme....not great literature...and plenty of clichés. ..but quite fun nevertheless. ..