Reviewed by Annika
TITLE: Dead Speak 
SERIES: Cold Case Psychic #1
AUTHOR: Pandora Pine
NARRATOR: Michael Pauley
PUBLISHER: Self Published
RELEASE DATE: June 22, 2018
LENGTH: 7 hours, 32 minutes
BLURB:
Demoted to the cold case squad after shooting a suspect in the line of duty, Detective Ronan O’Mara knows that his career with the Boston Police Department is hanging by a thread. His first assignment is the case of Michael Frye, a five-year-old boy who has been missing for seven years. With no new leads or witnesses to interview, Ronan has to start from scratch to solve this mystery. When he sees a handsome local psychic on television, Ronan figures he’s got nothing to lose in enlisting the man’s help to find Michael.
Psychic Tennyson Grimm is riding high after helping South Shore cops find a missing child. He’s even being courted by the Reality Show Network about a program showcasing his abilities. He has no idea that his midday appointment with a customer, who instead turns out to be a police detective, is going to change the course of his life and his career.
With the blessing of the BPD, which badly needs an image make-over, Ronan is allowed to bring Tennyson in to assist with the Frye case. Being thrown together in front of cameras is never easy, but add in an emotional missing person’s investigation, a tight-lipped spirit, and a cop who’s a skeptic, and it definitely puts a strain on both men and their working relationship.
When the child’s body is found, the work to identify his killer begins. As Ronan and Tennyson get closer to solving the case, the initial attraction they feel for one another explodes into a passion neither man can contain.
Will working together to bring Michael’s killer to justice seal their fledgeling bond, or will unexpected revelations in the case tear them apart forever?
REVIEW:
I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again – there’s something about psychic detective stories that calls to me, and this one is not an exception. I was a bit on the fence for a while, but in the end I realised I just couldn’t pass it up – and I’m glad I didn’t.
Detective Ronan O’Mara has had a tough year. His husband filed for divorce, he got demoted to work on cold cases after shooting a suspect. Not so much for the shooting, but for his drinking habits when he’s off work. After some mandatory leave to get his head back on straight he’s handed the case file of a missing boy. A boy that’s been missing for seven years. Ronan is determined to find out what happened to young Michael, so when he spots a news show about a psychic helping the police to find another young boy, he hopes he might be able to do it again.
Tennyson Grimm is psychic and has been since he was a little boy and he’s devoted his life to help the dead, and the living, find peace. So when Ronan approaches him about a cold case he is more than a little intrigued. After some negotiations, the two, along with a camera crew filming the entire process for a reality show, starts to look into what happened to the 5 year old boy.
I didn’t go into this book expecting a mystery masterpiece of any kind. I wanted to be entertained. And that’s exactly what I got. There are a lot of things that are unbelievable and not quite right, but read / listen to this book for what it is – entertainment – and you’ll enjoy it much more than if you expect any kind of correlation of how things works (or don’t work) IRL. For me, the identity of the killer was obvious very early on in the book and I kind of wished it was a bit less obvious. The mystery in general was a good one – but a truly horrible one. Other than that this book gave me exactly what I was looking for. It kept me entertained from start to finish.
Ronan and Tennyson’s relationship starts out a bit on the rocky side, with Ronan being sceptical of Tennyson’s powers, to say the least. He’s not really nice about it either. On the other hand, he’s also willing to give the man a try if it could help him solve what happened to Michael. Then, a bit out of nowhere, there is insta-lust and all the mistrust and feelings other than lust and love vanishes like they never were there in the first place. Insta-love is not my favourite trope, but I also recognise it is present in a lot of the books I pick up.
Michael Pauley is one of my go to narrators. I enjoy listening to his voice and I like that he has different voices for the different characters. It’s always easy to follow along the story, knowing who’s speaking. He also adds emotions to his narration, which is a huge gold star from me, it adds another dimension to the book, brings it to life in a way. Sure, some of the female voices didn’t always sound quite right, but hey – no one is perfect and it sure didn’t keep me from enjoying this book.
Dead Speak was a really good start to a promising series and I’m looking forward to solve more cases with these two guys.
RATING: 
BUY LINKS:
[…] Read More » […]