Hindsight (Cas Lehman and Detective Ed Dyson #1) in Aussie Readers

Nov 26, 2017 Brenda rated it it was amazing

Shelves: aussie-authors, net-galley, first-in-a-series, mystery, read-on-kindle, thriller, crime, own-read, 2013-release

Detective Ed Dyson’s wife Susan had vanished two years ago – she had never been found and Ed wasn’t coping with not knowing what had happened to her. His forays into the bottle were becoming more frequent and he knew he should stop, but couldn’t work out how. It was the anonymous call to alert police to a murder in an alley way which gave him purpose once again.

When Natalia, Superintendent at the Fairfield Station, called the Lehman household and asked for Cass’ help, it was to be the beginning ...more

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Aug 11, 2014 Shelleyrae at Book'd Out rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: provided-by-publisher, aussie-author, arc-are

Melanie Casey's debut novel, Hindsight, has been on my wishlist since its release. It is the first book in a series to feature Cass Lehman, a woman with the psychic gift of retrocognition, and South Australian police detective, Ed Dyson.

For almost a decade, Cass Lehman has lived more or less like a recluse in the home she shares with her mother and grandmother. Travel is difficult when her gift of retrocognition means that when she passes over a place where someone has died in a violent or traum
Melanie Casey's debut novel, Hindsight, has been on my wishlist since its release. It is the first book in a series to feature Cass Lehman, a woman with the psychic gift of retrocognition, and South Australian police detective, Ed Dyson.

For almost a decade, Cass Lehman has lived more or less like a recluse in the home she shares with her mother and grandmother. Travel is difficult when her gift of retrocognition means that when she passes over a place where someone has died in a violent or traumatic manner, Cass experiences their final horrifying moments. Now twenty eight and tired of her self imposed exile, Cass decides it is time to confront her demons and takes a huge risk by offering her services to the local police department after a woman is found murdered in an alleyway. The lead detective on the case, Ed Dyson, is scornful until Cass makes the connection between a handful of missing person cases and murders that has eluded Dyson for years, and the pair find themselves on the trail of a serial killer.

Cass's ability is intriguing, and can be viewed as both a gift and a curse. She pays a high price for her 'gift', since she not only sees and hears what the victims experienced but also feels the physical pain and emotional trauma they suffered. I really like that Cass's talent isn't always useful, since Cass can only see what the victim saw in their last moments when the killer strikes from behind, for example, she isn't able to offer much to a investigation.

The initial partnership between Cass and Ed is not an easy one. Ed is still struggling with the unsolved disappearance of his pregnant wife two years previously and doesn't have the patience to humour Cass given his skepticism. Cass resents Ed's easy dismissal of her, both because she believes she can help and because she is attracted to the detective.

Casey alternates between the first person perspective of Cass and third person perspectives from Ed, and the killer the pair are hunting. It's an unusual narrative split but works well and I barely noticed the transitions. The plot is well crafted, and crucially Casey doesn't allow the paranormal element to overwhelm the structure of a good crime novel. The pacing of the story is good with a tense, and somewhat gruesome, climatic ending that threatens the lives of both the protagonists.

Combining crime fiction with an interesting paranormal element and a touch of romance, I really enjoyed reading Hindsight. I'd particularly recommend it those who find the genre mix appealing and who might have liked Charlaine Harris's Harper Connelly series. I'm looking forward to following Hindsight up with Casey's second book, Craven.
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Oct 20, 2021 Catsalive rated it liked it

Shelves: 2021, aww

Not a bad debut. I generally enjoyed the premise & the plotting but found the ending quite lazy. Why didn't Samuels get crucified? How stupid was Dyson losing his gun? What sort of idiot was Cass to go off merrily with an unknown person? And she was an idiot: supposedly 28 years old, she acted more like 16. One could make some allowances for her troubled life but her reactions were often that of a child, not of someone who had lived with their talent for 20 years. The beginning was crisper than ...more

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Feb 18, 2016 Bree T rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: arc, mystery, crime

A good series can be my weakness. It doesn’t matter what genre it is half the time. I have this thing where I just love reconnecting with the same characters and being able to go back to them time and time again. Perhaps it’s a comfort thing? Although when the genre is crime and your heart is in your mouth, there’s probably not so much comfort in it!

This is the first novel in a series pairing a psychic and a cop together – probably not exactly a new combo, it’s an opposites attract sort of pairi A good series can be my weakness. It doesn’t matter what genre it is half the time. I have this thing where I just love reconnecting with the same characters and being able to go back to them time and time again. Perhaps it’s a comfort thing? Although when the genre is crime and your heart is in your mouth, there’s probably not so much comfort in it!

This is the first novel in a series pairing a psychic and a cop together – probably not exactly a new combo, it’s an opposites attract sort of pairing that works well. Cass Lehman comes from a family with a long line of the females possessing different sorts of supernatural gifts. Cass has a gift that’s well, pretty gruesome. It’s a form of retrocognition where if she enters/encounters a place someone died violently, she experiences it as it happened to the victim. It makes going out hard because you’re never sure when you’re going to stumble on a place where someone died and it’s not something she has any control over. She can’t decide whether or not to open her mind and experience it, it will slam into her without warning. She’s lived her life almost as a recluse, rarely venturing into town and mapping ‘safe’ places, where no one has met a grisly end. Ed Dyson is a detective investigating a murder in a tiny town in South Australia when Cass volunteers her help. Ed is a bit of a mess, his wife Susan disappeared whilst pregnant several years ago and no trace of her has ever been found. Immediately upon meeting Cass and her family, Ed is confronted with more information about what has happened to Susan and it makes him angry and hostile, lashing out at Cass.

I’m a skeptic and I’ll freely admit it. I don’t really believe in psychic abilities….perhaps because I think there are too many fraudsters out there who may have masked those with any possible genuine ability. However I’m happy to read about it when it lends an interesting facet to a story and I think Cass’ particular…..gift? (saying that sounds a bit wrong when the poor girl has to experience violent deaths as if it were happening to her) adds quite an element of horror to the story as well as a unique way in which the detectives can acquire information. Cass and Ed don’t have an easy start to their working relationship, complicated by Ed’s unresolved issues and grief over the disappearance of his wife as well as his need to deal with Cass and her family’s abilities before they can settle forward. Cass is aware quite early on that she has some feelings for him that do stretch beyond the professional but she’s very inexperienced and would probably be content to never do anything about them.

The serial killer was suitably creepy and we got a little glimpse inside his mind throughout the story. I liked the way the narrative switched between Cass, Ed and the killer as I like getting more than one perspective in a crime novel. Cass provides the colour and a lot of internal thoughts, Ed is the police legwork and the pain of his wife’s disappearance and the killer is well, disturbing. The switches felt seamless though and helped tell the story in a more complete way so I think it definitely worked. The pacing was good and the ending was done pretty well. I found it refreshing that in a way, Cass was able to save herself inadvertently.

I really enjoyed this and I definitely want to see how things progress with Cass and Ed, especially now as he’s not really in limbo anymore. Hopefully I can get my hands on the next book soon. ...more

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