Thursday, July 21, 2011

Tempest in the Tea Leaves-Kari Lee Townsend

Tempest in the Tea Leaves
Kari Lee Townsend
Berkley, Aug 2 2011, $7.99
ISBN: 9780425242759

Psychic Sunny Meadows relocates from New York City to Divinity, New York where she opens up her shingle as a fortuneteller. She barely is open for business when her first frazzled customer begs her for help. Town librarian Amanda Robbins asks Sunny to read her future. The tea leaves frighten Sunny who calls the police that something bad will soon happen to Amanda.

The cops scoff at her talent until Amanda turns up dead. The police immediately suspect Sunny committed the homicide but struggle with a viable motive though they think the fortune teller is a bit wacky. To prove her innocence she teams up with by the book detective Mitch Stone.

With a nod to Victoria Laurie’s Abby Cooper, Psychic Eye (the early books), Kari Lee Townsend provides paranormal amateur sleuth fans with a fun whodunit. The engaging story line is at its best when the psychic and the cop verbally but warmly argue. With a terrific twisting climax to a well written murder mystery Harriet Klausner psychic reviewer (some will borrow Letterman’s electric skill and change the letters to psycho) predicts readers will enjoy Sunny Meadows’ first case.

Harriet Klausner

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