Extra Sensory Deception - Allison Kingsley

 

 

Extra Sensory Deception

A Raven’s Nest Bookstore Mystery

Allison Kingsley

Berkley Prime Crime

 

Mystery/Paranormal

 

There’s a rarity in tiny Finn’s Harbor, Maine: a rodeo is in town.  Clara Quinn and her cousin, Stephanie, find out about it early.  Clara’s new boyfriend, Rick, knows one of the calf ropers, and is passing out posters to put in business windows.  The poster features a rodeo cowboy and triggers a vision for Clara’s Quinn Sense almost immediately.  The vision says the clown is in terrible danger.  Rick is taking Clara to the first night of the rodeo to meet his buddy, Wes, but Clara is distracted by the vision.  She’s trying to decide if warning the clown will make her sound crazy or dangerous.  (Probably, yes.)

 

The rodeo turns out to be more fun than Clara expected.  Sadly, by the time it’s over, a young woman is dead.  Lisa, an assistant to the promoter, has been strangled with a custom-made rodeo rope.  That rope belongs to Wes, and they were seen arguing earlier.  Naturally, Wes is the prime suspect and Clara decides to ask some questions to put Rick’s mind at ease.

 

There’s a sense of being a step or two removed from the actual mystery here, since the reader never meets Lisa, and only meets Wes once, and briefly, at that.  Clara and Stephanie go about the routine of asking questions, but don’t come up with much, really.  The mystery plot seems a bit meandering this time around, until a second death shifts things into gear.  Clara and Stephanie are a lot more realistic when they’re just being cousins who run a bookstore instead of amateur sleuths.  That said, the main characters are fun to watch.  The bookstore gets a new mascot in this outing, and the cousins make plans for the future of their business.

 

Rating: 6

August 2014

ISBN# 978-0-425-27138-4 (paperback)

MIND OVER MURDER

A SINISTER SENSE 
TROUBLE VISION