An Unhappy Medium (A Family Fortune Mystery, #4)

by Dawn Eastman

Psychic Clyde Fortune and her zany family are back in the fourth in the national bestselling series from the author of A Fright to the Death.
 
Former cop and novice psychic Clyde Fortune finds herself in a race for justice when a Zombie Fun Run turns deadly...
 
All of Crystal Haven, Michigan, is psyching up to participate in a Zombie Fun Run organized by Clyde’s nephew Seth, but Clyde is fretful about the undead festivities. For one thing, her sister, Grace, has unexpectedly returned to town after fifteen years. For another, Clyde has the nagging feeling that something is about to go wrong...
 
When one of the zombie runners is found murdered and then Grace disappears, Clyde realizes her grim premonition is dead-on. Now, she and her police detective boyfriend Mac must find a ghoulish murderer before someone points the finger at Grace. And when a tangled web of family secrets and old grudges combines with a mysterious case of stolen diamonds, even someone as quick-witted as Clyde might not be able to outrun a killer...

• ISBN10: 0425282805
• ISBN13: 9780425282809
• Publish Date: 5 April 2016
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Publisher: Penguin Putnam Inc
• Imprint: Berkley Publishing Corporation,U.S.
• Format: Paperback (US Mass Market)
• Pages: 304
• Language: English
• URL: https://penguinrandomhouse.com/books/isbn/9780425282809

Reviews

[MurderByDeath]

If a book can hold your attention when you're in a slump, it can't be half bad right?   I enjoy this series as it's one of the few rational cozy series out there; most of the characters are likeable, the small town setting is vivid and the plotting is usually pretty good.  Clyde is a strong, normally intelligent main character trying to come to grips with a psychic gift she's ignored most of her life and her family is just crazy enough to be realistic.  Mac is a great romantic lead who doesn't define himself by his ability to alpha male everyone around him.   This book's plotting, though, wasn't quite as strong as the others.  I'm left with the impression that the mystery itself was just an excuse to further Clyde's family's story arc along.  To string the mystery out, the author made Clyde dim: her visions were fairly easy for the reader to interpret as events unfolded, but Clyde remained clueless and the final denouement revealed a culprit that was never a suspect either for anyone in the book or the reader as there simply wasn't any forward progression after the initial murder scene.   I was going to ding the rating for this, but my rating reflects my enjoyment and I did enjoy this book; the character sub-story was interesting enough that I didn't miss what was missing from the mystery itself.

[Silvara]

Check out my other reviews, discussions and link ups at Fantasy of the Silver Dragon.

I received this book for free from Berkley Prime Crime in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

I haven't read any books in this series before. And usually with cozy mysteries that isn't a problem. For the most part, it wasn't. Enough was explained as I read, that the only thing I was left in the dark about was Clyde's gift. You get a few tiny hints, but mostly you were expected to know what she was able to do already. At least until close to half-way through the book. A better explanation of her gift was towards the end.

Kind of a silly quibble, but Clyde? For a girl? Yes, it's short for a much longer (no idea whatsoever how to pronounce!) name. But even the longer version was weird. Her older sister is named Grace. And no one else in the town had a name as strange as Clyde's. It kind of reminded me of special-snowflake syndrome, only in those cases the name would have been pretty, or snobby, not boyish.

It was also strange to me, how Clyde said she was unemployed. Yet, technically she was in business with her Aunt Vi, using one of her gifts to find lost pets and objects. It didn't sound like she had many customers, and she was happy about that. But if she wasn't making money at her 'job', how did she have enough money for take out for nearly every dinner? Was her boyfriend Mac making enough money as a police officer to support 3 people?

I did like how the mystery unfolded. And the way Clyde's family was together. I didn't much like Aunt Vi, or Grace, but I really liked the other characters in the book. Seth and Sophie were adorable, well, Sophie more than Seth! But Seth was a believable teenage boy.

I loved the twists and turns. There were side mysteries as well as the main one. And I had no idea at all who the killer was, even up to the reveal at the end. I had a few guesses, but nothing that really made me go "I think so-and-so did it." I also liked how everyone who had a gift had something different.

This review was originally posted on Fantasy of the Silver Dragon