5 Star Review for Secret of the Big Easy – 2nd book in the series
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Rating: 5.0 stars
Reviewed by Brenda C. for Readers Favorite
Dr. Marie Bartek, a veterinarian from Sullivan’s Island SC, is learning to deal with the fact that she can see spirits. She and some of her friends created Sullivan’s Island Paranormal Society called SIPS for short and often investigate haunted places. While in New Orleans for veterinarian conference she and her friends decide to stay an additional week to do some site seeing, and investigate a few haunted places. Their vacation quickly turns into something else when Marie has a vision of a woman being tortured and then murdered. She decides to contact the police to see if there are any missing women in the area, and learns that the woman she saw in her vision has actually been murdered and is at the morgue. When she has another vision similar to the first, except that this time she sees a pentagram in the vision, she again contacts the police and learns that cult activity is heavy in the area, and that the woman in the second vision was murdered as well. Are the killings cult sacrifices, or is something else going on? Will Marie and her friends be able to figure out what is going on?
“Secret of the Big Easy” has plenty going that grabs the reader’s attention and keeps it until the final page. The suspense surrounding the murders that Marie is seeing in her visions is really first rate> Add to that the mystery of why the murders are taking place and you have a first rate story, but that is just the tip of the iceberg with this story, because there is so much more going on. There is the romance going on between Marie and her boyfriend Cory, who just happens to be the police chief of Sullivan’s Island. My favorite parts of the story are the paranormal supernatural elements of the story. Marie is trying to learn how to handle seeing spirits, and to deal with the visions she sees. The visions she had were very vivid allowing me to feel as if I could actually see what was happening, and also kept me wondering what might happen next. I am a huge fan of ghost hunting/paranormal activity and because of Ms. Murphy’s accurate descriptions it was easy to see that she had really done her research in this area. The secondary characters really balance out the story, and the relationship between Gale and Tim was often funny. I always enjoy when there is an animal written into a story and in this one we have Bailey, a chocolate Lab which Cory gave to Marie.
Even though this is the second book in a series, the author provides plenty of background information making it easy to read this book as a stand alone work, although the story line is so interesting I certainly plan on going back and reading the first book in the series titled “Sullivan’s Secret.” While Ms. Murphy provides a great ending for “Secret of the Big Easy,” I am anxious to see what direction Marie and the SIPS team take in the next book. Recommended!
