Kari Lee Townsend – Corpse in the Crystal Ball

The second book in the Fortune Teller Mystery series, published June 5, 2012.
Genre: paranormal cozy mystery
Cover: love it



Psychic Sunshine Meadows makes a dark discovery in the woods...
After clearing her name as the prime suspect in a murder, Sunny Meadows hopes she can finally enjoy some serenity in the idyllic town of Divinity in upstate New York. She'd also like a second chance with Detective Mitch Stone. But when Mitch's gorgeous ex-girlfriend Isabel Gonzales shows up, Sunny's not sure she can compete. Then Isabel mysteriously disappears.
When the police turn to Sunny for help, her visions lead to the discovery of Isabel's corpse in the woods. Before she died, Isabel scrawled in the dirt a message implicating Mitch in her murder. Now Sunny must help the man she's falling in love with as she sets out to find the real killer. But this time Sunny's clairvoyant abilities might not save her - as what she doesn't see can hurt her...


After successfully solving her first murder case, Sunny’s psychic business is doing well. She has a lot of clients, and she enjoys her new house and cat, and everything. But she is not sure she wants to go further with Mitch, after all, he totally does not believe in her powers. So how can they be together? They should just try to be friends first. But when his gorgeous ex-girlfriend shows up in town, she is not so sure of that anymore.
And then her grandmother shows up in her house. She loves her grandmother dearly, but she is dead sure her parents set her up, to keep an eye on her. They promised to stay out of her life until Easter, and now this. But she loves her granny, and doesn’t tell her about her resentment. Of course, she also loves the cooking and cleaning her grandmother does around the house, if only she would stop interfering with her readings! She really cannot handle cookie breaks while in a trance.
Her cat Morty has taken a liking to her grandmother as well, letting her dress him up with bow ties, and worse!

And then Isabel ends up murdered, and Mitch is the prime suspect. Relieved of his duty and his badge, he is supposed to stay at home, taking care of Isabel’s even gorgeous twin sister, while Sunny and Detective Fuller solve the case. Sunny doesn’t believe Mitch is guilty, and Detective Fuller seems to be ruled by the clock: breakfast, lunch and dinner are more important to him. So Sunny sets out by herself to follow some leads.
And while she discovers Isabel’s secrets, and some of Mitch as well, she puts herself into more danger than she can foresee.
Sunny is still in love with Mitch, but she knows nothing can come of it, especially now with Selena who needs him more than she does. And then there is that handsome mailman Kevin, who seems to like her very much. Even Morty approves of him, while he hates Mitch (which is duplicated!). And so she tries to summon enough cheer to go out with Kevin, and why is Mitch acting so jealous?

At first there are suspects galore, as in the short time that Isabel stayed in town, she managed to aggravate a lot of people. But one by one they get cleared, and Mitch is left as the only viable suspect. Until they start digging deeper and deeper and start looking at outsiders who came to town and knew Isabel. And about the money she had embezzled.


I enjoyed this story even more than the first, as Sunny has become a bit more mature. She won’t give up on clearing Mitch’s name, even though she doesn’t know what to do anymore with her love life. Her gran sure is a character. And she wants to learn to drive a car! At her age, and with her bad vision. Still, Sunny doesn’t want to disappoint her, and risks life and Beetle to give her some experience.

I did have my suspicions but could never have guessed the whole plot. That ending was truly awesome, I loved it. Kari Lee Townsend wrote a great mystery, that was just a whole lot of fun, with eccentric characters and a very peculiar cat. I just wish that Sunny had done some more readings to figure out things, instead of investigating the oldfashioned way. There is definitely romance in this book, but not love scenes. Not only for Sunny, but also for some of her friends, and I enjoyed reading about them as well.

I am looking forward to reading the next book, and do recommend this to all lovers of paranormal cozy mysteries.

9 stars

© 2012 Reviews by Aurian