bIn "Touching Evil," Kay Hooper spins a highly improbable yarn about police sketch artist Maggie Barnes, who has a "secret" behind her talent that she "isn't telling." Well guess what? She's got a funky paranormal connection to violence, which is no secret, and she does tell.

The plot of this mystery is full of loose ends, cliches, and holes as big as your fist, and all the psychics in the world (all of whom, incidentally, appear to be involved one way or another in this silly tale) can't fix it.

This book is written at about a fifth-grade level, but of course the content is much too gruesome for a child. Also I wouldn't subject a young reader to Hooper's clumsy overuse of elipses.

Psychic thriller .... too many psychics render unbelievable

Rating: 4/5

This is the story of Maggie, a psychic empath who listens to crime victims horrible experiences and creates an exact sketch of the criminal. She's very successful up until she begins to help the police with their hunt for a serial rapist who wears a plastic mask and blinds his victims by gouging their eyes out.

John, a wealthy business mogul, joins the cast of characters in this story after his sister is victimized by the killer. After healing from the attack she commits suicide - at least that's what the police think - Maggie and John know better.

Enter the plot points that spoiled the story: Maggie's brother is also psychic and talks to someone who isn't named during the course of the story at all. Then John brings in two friends from an FBI special unit to help with the investigation. They are also psychic.

So there I was reading a thoroughly engrossing story when suddenly the story contained FOUR psychics. That was a bit much. I almost abandoned the book at that point, but didn't. The other spoiler was that all the characters said "Yeah" when they agreed with something - wasn't there an editor involved in this book? Fortunately the story was entertaining enough to finish, but it's not a keeper.

Kept me on the edge of my seat!

Rating: 5/5

This book was wonderful, had a wonderful plot and once I started reading I did not want to put it down, I'm looking forward to reading more of her books.