Rating: 4/5 stars

I have to say that I really enjoy books with a mix of paranormal, crime, and mystery in them.

This is the first book in the Cass Lehman and Ed Dyson series by Melanie Casey. I thought this book was going to be more fast paced than it was but other than that it was a pretty good book.

This book alternates between Cass Lehman and Ed Dyson. Cass is the one who can see and feel what happened in people's last moments if they died violently. Ed is the detective that she seems out to offer her help for a case he's working on.

This was well written except that it could have used a bit more character backgrounds.

Thank you to NetGalley for my copy of this in exchange for an honest review.

I would say that I am typically not a fan of the mystery genre. But this novel captured my attention from the first few pages and held it throughout the book. I will give the second novel in this series a try. I truly enjoyed Cass Lehman and Detective Dyson in this mystery and can't wait to see what happens in the sequel.

Thanks Netgalley. What a great first book, little bit scary (for me) at times but had a great story and fast pace action and a great ending. More please author

I really loved this book! It was a super fast and easy read. I'm a bit of a sucker for mystery/thrillers with a female lead with a mystical power(s), in this case retro-cognition, and this was just the kind of book I was looking for. Initially, I was a little hesitant, as I often am about contemporary crime thrillers authored by non-United States based authors (Casey is based in Australia, I believe, as is the story), since different countries have different criminal justice systems and sometimes its hard to think about the situations when you don't know the rules, but there was no difficulties with this book. I love Cass Lehman and her whole family, as the author allows you to feel the love they have for each other and how they deal with Cass's ability. I enjoyed Detective Ed Dyson, even when he was at his grouchiest, as he is doing the best he can after his pregnant wife's disappearance. I can't wait to see where the series goes and how the relationship between Cass and Ed could develop. I will definitely read the next book in the series.

I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This is crime with a paranormal bent, Australian style. Cass Lehman has a special gift; one she might well wish she had never experienced. 30 years old, she lives with her mother Anita and her grandmother and yes, you guessed it, a rather lazy and somewhat overweight black cat.
Cass’s mother can see the future. Her grandmother can help heal the injured, but Cass’s gift is altogether more painful. She has retro-cognition, which means that she can see, smell, hear and literally experience a violent death if she is in the spot where that death occurred.. As you might imagine, this means that she doesn’t get out much and thus her romantic life is a tad on the not happening side and driving anywhere is pretty much dicing with death.
When Janet Hodgson’s body is found in a crate after an anonymous tip off to the police, Ed Dyson and his partner Phil Steiner investigate. Leads are few are far between. This is a small town and it’s not long before everyone is gossiping about the death and who the police are looking for – a homeless man named Mick whom they believe was responsible for the tip off and may have seen something which could help them.
Learning that the victim was in the witness protection programme means that soon the state police are called in, but there is a clash between the two sets of cops who have trouble working together.
Then Mick is also found brutally murdered and when Cass volunteers to help she is met at first with hostility and suspicion.
What Cass does not know is that Ed’s wife hand their unborn child went missing some years ago. When she is by chance waiting for him in his house, she sees some photographs of missing persons on a whiteboard. These are cases that Ed has been investigating in his own time, hoping to get a lead on what may have happened to his wife, Susan. He’s been completely stymied – failing to spot anything they may have in common.
Cass however is quick to spot one common factor between a number of them and this leads a more substantial pattern being identified.
When, however, Cass’s involvement with the police is unwittingly revealed and splashed across the local papers, she is put in serious jeopardy and it will be a race to save her from the clutches of a psychopathic serial killer.
Now, I have a slight weakness for the occasional light and easy read, and to be fair, I did quite enjoy this one. It’s pretty predictable and doesn’t take long to get through, but if you like your crime with a touch of romance and a dash of paranormal, then this one will be for you.

This book was an easy read it was also a really good book. I will now be reading more books by this author excelent writing style.

Cass Lehman has a blessing... or a curse. If she stands where someone has died, she experiences the death as though it is happening to her. Her mother can foretell the future. And her grandmother can heal.

Cass has been more or less house bound for quite a while. Whenever she leaves her house, she has to plot a course to get to wherever she is going so as not to walk or drive across an area where someone has died a violent death.

Detective Dyson is investigating some women who have gone missing. It takes Cass to see what all the victims have in common, including Dyson's pregnant wife, who disappeared 2 years earlier.

Now that the secret is out that the police are using a psychic, Cass is afraid the killer will be after her next ... and she's right.

This is an entertaining read with a very good story premise. I really enjoyed the interaction of Cass and her family.... especially when mama wants to 'read' Cass. Dyson is a flawed character. Still missing his pregnant wife and not knowing what happened to her, has turned him into a heavy drinker. He still functions well when suffering a hangover, but his boss and his partner are watching him closely. He can be surly at times, but at the core he's a very caring man.

The mystery and suspense start from the first page and endures to the last. This is the first book in a series and it looks to be a good one.

Many thanks to the author / Pantera Press / Netgalley for the advanced digital copy. Opinions expressed here are unbiased and entirely my own.