A Glimpse of Evil (Psychic Eye Mysteries, Book 8) by Victoria Laurie

 

I have had issues with the Psychic Eye Mysteries in the past, enough that I almost dropped the series. The previous book in the series, Doom with a View, was pretty good and gave me hope.  A Glimpse of Evil once again did not disappoint. Once Victoria Laurie stepped out of the formula that wasn't working, it seems to have given the series new life. That's a good thing.

Abby and Dutch are moving to Texas, and Abby will be working for the FBI now.  It was a bit painful to watch Abby walk into a room full of FBI agents assigned to work cold cases, and who are all majorly skeptical about the psychic they've heard will be joining their department. But Abby handled it okay, and she had two people batting on her side. (Which, BTW, brings me to a major sticking point with me -- how believable is it that someone can move from Michigan to Texas and have her entire social circle move with her? Right, not very likely. But we have Candace and Agent Harrison and the handyman and even Milo joining them in their new city. It was a huge stretch for me.)

Back to the main part of the discussion: Abby has Dutch and Agent Harrison on her side, but a whole lot of other agents who are a bit hostile at first. Until she starts to work on the cold case files and shows she's the real deal, but that's pretty predictable, right?

The majority of the story involves a rocky relationship between Candace and Brice (Agent Harrison), Abby trying to deal with working for the FBI in a corporate environment. (No candles, all florescent lights, official paperwork, lots of rules, boxes and boxes containing oodles of files, etc.). We don't really get into the crime part of the plot until we're a decent ways into the book, but I guessed the culprit soon after realizing which of the crimes the plot was going to center on. So, I guess that annoyed me, too. I mean, Abby's telling the story, which means we have the same information she has, so should we really be able to figure it out so much sooner than she does?

Here's the blurb:

Professional psychic Abigail Cooper has received a cold welcome from some prickly investigators at the FBI. But that won't stop her from following her intuition...even if it brings her eye to eye with acts of true evil.

SOME COLD CASES ARE BETTER LEFT COLD...

As the FBI's newest civilian profiler, Abby Cooper has a tough job ahead of her. Not only does she have to use her powers of intuition to help solve a backlog of the bureau's cold cases, but she must also win over a frosty group of seasoned investigators and teach them how to develop their own perceptive abilities.

If that weren't challenging enough, Abby's sure that several of the cold cases are connected, but she's the only one who's convinced. Things go from bad to worse when Abby and another agent are suspended for not following protocol, leaving Abby and her old partner, Candice, to investigate on their own. To discover how these pieces fit together, Abby will have to call on every intuitive bone in her body...before she's the one put on ice. 

As for my usual rundown: there were multiple story lines, some of which were better than others, but the main plot was too obviously solved (in my head, not in the book) too early on. Pacing was well done, not really any slow points, which is good. Prose and dialogue were good. Character development is fairly well done.

In other words, the various elements don't win any awards, but the story, the entertainment value part of it, was higher than the individual elements would lead one to believe.

I'm going to give A Glimpse of Evil an 8 of 10, and I will raise the series from a 7 of 10 to an 8 of 10. The end of the book gives us a good idea of what the next book, Eye Spy, will be about, and we even get a preview of it. I'm looking forward to reading Eye Spy, when it comes out.

Book Rating: A Glimpse of Evil: 8 of 10
Series Rating: Psychic Eye Mysteries: 8 of 10





1. Abby Cooper, Psychic Eye
2. Better Read Than Dead
3. A Vision of Murder
4. Killer Insight
5. Crime Seen
6. Death Perception<>
7. Doom with a View (Sept 2009)
8. A Glimpse of Evil (July 2010)
9  Eye Spy (2011)