A Haunting Dream: 02/19/16

A Haunting Dream by Joyce Lavene and Jim Lavene is the fourth of the Missing Pieces Mystery series. Dae up for re-election for mayor of Duck but has to contend with the arrival of Kevin's ex-girlfriend. Meanwhile, a child has been kidnapped and Dae's getting psychic messages from her, something that's never happened to her before.

In past books Dae's psychic ability has been related to lost things and people's last thoughts when either losing the item or when dying if that thing was near them at the time of death. In the last book, A Spirited Gift, Dae's talent was expanded to include the ability to talk to ghosts.

So now we have a kidnapping of a child who may or may not be dead, an ex-girlfriend who is emotionally damaged from her experience as a psychic, and more fallout from Dae learning the identity of her father. All of this super charged emotional baggage moved the book from the cozy category to the thriller or even horror genre.

I'm frankly not a fan of the love lives of the protagonist, whoever he or she may be. I think that's why I'm such a Sherlock Holmes fan because the cases are always the main focus. Sure there's Irene Adler and depending on the non-canon ones, there sometimes hints at a relationship between Holmes and Watson, or there's Mary Russell (in Laurie R. King's series). It seems in more recent cozies that the main character, especially if it's a woman, must have a love interest and with a love interest comes the love triangle and all sorts of other filler nonsense.

Three stars

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