Gunshot Wound, Help With Cold Case, Undercover Without a net. Looks like another interesting, and dangerous, Abby Cooper story. ( )

Fieldnotes:
Royal Oak, MI, Contemporary (p.2007)

1 New PI Officemate / Partner
2 Significant Cold Cases

1 Nasty Financial Racket
1 Mortgage Business (Sleazy)
3 Visits to Jail

1 Forgotten Promise
Countless Running Away Instead of Talking to Her Romantic Interest
1 (Admittedly Rude) Cat who is Rehomed Just Because a Love Interest Hates Him

The Short Version
Trying to get her psychic groove back, Abby teams up with her PI friend Candice and embroils herself in a cold case involving Milo and Dutch - the murder of Milo's first partner and another involving the death of a CIA operative. Both without Dutch's actual knowledge or consent.

Abby ends up taking a boring (and super sleazy) 9-5 as a mortgage originator for a crooked loan business to snoop for information and, of course, things end up linked (sort of). While the vision from the CIA operative showing how she was killed was interesting, I prefer Abby working from somewhat more cryptic information as it makes it fun to puzzle things out.

The relationship between Dutch and Abby is just...meant to be funny, I guess? Abby takes her commitment-phobia to the point of running away and hiding when she doesn't want to have any sort of unpleasant talk (especially while she's over here jeapordizing Dutch's career) and it's not cute. Just talk to him or break up with him. You're not 14. (He's not really much better, to be fair, but he didn't do much to tick me off in this one - mostly because she ran away from him so often that he wasn't really around).

Also, Dutch's cat hates Abby, which Dutch laughs off...until he doesn't and ends up rehoming the cat and getting a puppy so that Abby stops whining all the time and moves in - umm. No. I'm not a cat person, but NO. ( )

This one started kind of slow for me, but picked up steam for an interesting finish. Since I've read a couple of books in this series beyond this one, it was good to get a little extra history in this installment. ( )

Professional psychic Abby Cooper has been recovering from her near fatal shooting by staying at the house of her boyfriend, FBI agent Dutch Rivers. Abby's body is healing, but she is reluctant to go back to work as a psychic because she questions why she didn't foresee that she would be shot. To help Abby in her recovery, Dutch asks her to help him solve a couple of his cases using her psychic powers. Abby agrees and finds that it's just the medicine she needs. But she accidentally comes across a case involving a cop killer and her intuition tells her the wrong man is in jail. Abby realizes that even though Dutch won't like it, she has to clear the wronged man's name and find the real killer. But Abby's persistence will lead her into real danger, once again.

"Crime Seen" is another great entry in Victoria Laurie's Psychic Eye mystery series. Abby is a great character and Laurie (a psychic herself) does a good job of showing how the psychic mind works. I love the description of her spirit guides. Abby has grown as a character throughout the course of the books and her struggle to decide whether or not to go back to work as a psychic because she is afraid she'll fail is very realistically done. Laurie's decision to have Abby set up a partnership with PI Candice is a good one and will no doubt open up many plot lines in future books. It's also good to see Abby have a local female friend since her friend Theresa moved to California. Abby's relationship with Dutch is also well written and their living together adds another dimension to that relationship. Their relationship is very real, especially when Abby keeps secrets from Dutch because she knows he'll worry and her struggle to be in a relationship yet remaining independent is very realistic. There's also a good deal of humor in the relationship, especially when Abby gives Dutch a haircut. The mystery aspects of this book are a bit different, since Abby is trying to solve a case that happened in the past and is considered closed. Because of that, there's not a lot of suspects and the identity of the killer isn't really a surprise, although there is a neat little twist at the end of the book.

"Crime Seen" is another great mystery by Victoria Laurie. ( )

Another great book featuring Abby Cooper and her pals. The series keeps getting better all the time. ( )