I was really excited to get my hands on this. It had good reviews and its quirky nature seemed up my alley. And it…mostly met expectations. Let’s unpack…
For all intents and purposes, this is a cozy mystery and I don’t usually do cozies. The relentlessly sunny outlook despite the presence of a dead body, the sexless flirting and banter, the stuffy settings and predictable plots.
But even though this has some of that, it was written by a younger person who isn’t trying too hard to be hip with the dialogue. And it has a neat hook: woman with psychic powers assists police in catching a murderer. Cherie Priest, a veteran writer who is new to this genre, knows how to tell her story and she does it well enough. It’s quick, it’s witty, it pauses to be mournful when it should be. It hits every note.
So I enjoyed it. It had a neat hook and was fun. I could’ve done with more characterization from both leads aside from them being a widow and widower respectively. I could’ve also done with a more critical look at police work as the handsome detective with respectful co-workers is employed by a department that in real life was recently under a federal consent decree for its history of grotesque racism. Nevertheless, most of this works and I’ll probably try more. It appears to be the first in the series and I hope Priest builds on the momentum and continues to improve her writing.