I was quite impressed with the first book in this series. I mean, it was utterly stupid, but it was extremely entertaining. And so I read the second book.
And… it’s not good. The first book was nice in that it was all investigation all the time, but there’s a whole lot less plot in this book. Instead it feels like we’re in total stasis for large parts of the book, and the author resorts to adding bickering between the characters to pad things out, as well as adding character development (it turns out that the protagonist’s father wasn’t there for him when he grew up) and several scenes of gross grossness.
It was way too easy to guess who the killers were in the first book, so I wondered whether he had honed his mystery-writing skills on that point for this one, but nope: As soon as the character was introduced, he might has well have had neon signs flashing pointing at him: “HE’S THE ONE!!!”
This book felt like it was twice as long as the first, so I was shocked when I saw that they’re the same number of pages.
Of course this book has an even higher Goodreads rating than the first book — but that’s usually the case with series: People who didn’t like the first book aren’t going to be reading the second book, so a book has to be really awful to have the ratings decrease. It is interesting that the second book has half as many reviews, but then again, it’s newer, so…
Amusingly enough, the third book (which will be published in August 2026) already has 43 reviews. Lots of psychics use Goodreads.
Wow.
Well, gotta have a look at the one star reviews…
That’s more like it.
This one is accurate.
Well, it’s all a disappointment after the first book — I thought I had found an entertainingly schlocky author, but the entertainment factor dissipated.
A Drop of Corruption (2025) by Robert Jackson Bennett (buy new, buy used, 4.49 on Goodreads)