Dark Magic.

Title/Author: Dark Magic (Peter Warlock #1) by James Swain.

Narration: Stephen R. Thorne.

Genre: Supernatural thriller.

Publisher: AudioGo.

Source: Library.

Synopsis: Peter Warlock is a magician with a dark secret. Every night, he amazes audiences at his private theater in New York, where he performs feats that boggle the imagination.

But his day job is just a cover for his otherworldly pursuits: Peter is a member of an undergrond group of psychics who gaze into the future to help prevent crimes. No one, not even his live-in girlfriend, knows the truth about Peter -- until the seance when he foresees an unspeakable act of violence that will devastate the city. As Peter and his friends rush to prevent tragedy, Peter discovers that a shadowy cult of evil psychics, the Order of Astrum, know all about his abilities.  They are hunting him and his fellow psychics down, one by one, determined to silence them forever. ~Goodreads.com.

Midnyte Musings:  Dark Magic had a good premise, but it didn't deliver for me.  It's about stage magician Peter Warlock, who is actually a psychic.  He and 6 other psychic friends have seances every friday night.  But when Peter has a vision of a terrorist attack in Times Square he has to get to the bottom of the mystery.   Sounds straightforward, but I found the plot confusing, the dialogue puzzling and the characters frustrating.

The story is told in a few omniscient different points of view, but mostly via main character Peter Warlock.  I wanted to like Peter.  I love magicians...I think psychics are cool!  But Peter didn't elicit sympathy from me and other than being a mostly nice guy, there wasn't really anything that made me want to know him.  His girlfriend Liza drove me crazy.  If my boyfriend had pyshic powers, I'd be, well psyched!  I wouldn't be mad at him for not telling me right away.  Some issues you have to get to know a person first and build trust before you divulge a secret.  Liza didn't see it that way.  Then she got mad at Peter because he had to keep government secrets and help stop a killer instead of talking about their relationship.  I don't know what he saw in her.  

And another thing, if someone asks you to call 911, what would you do?  Would you call or would you ask a bunch of questions and then call?  A lot of the book was like this.  One character would tell another something.  The other would ask a bunch of questions so that the first character would have to explain.  If someone told me that a bad guy was after me, I wouldn't argue about it.  If someone told me to stay inside for the day because the bad guy was outside, I probably would.  Every character did this.  Questioned and argued and I don't feel it moved the plot along or revealed anything the people.

Also, I felt an important plot point was kind of thrown in.  About two thirds of the way in the book, the people around Peter talk about his terrible temper.  It was not very believable.  He did snap at a few people once in a while, and then his temper got a bit worse, but I think it would have worked better if we were shown his temper earlier.  The reason for his temper was a cool twist however.  There are other twists in the book but the writing is so over simplified that the story unfolds almost like a police statement. Just facts and no richness.  

Narration:  The narration was not that fluid and I wonder if that hindered the book for me.  However, I think Thorne did a good job with all the different characters.  Everyone sounded distinct.    

Starstruck over:  I like the idea of a secret society of real psychics in NYC.