Just finished reading...

A Timely Vision (A Missing Pieces Mystery) by Joyce and Jim Lavene.*

This is a first in a new series by the Lavenes, authors of The Renaissance Faire mysteries and The Peggy Lee Garden mysteries, among others.

Dae O'Donnell is the mayor of Duck, North Carolina, a tiny seaside tourist town. She also owns a collectible shop called Missing Pieces. Oh, and she's psychic. Her specialty is finding lost things, which she can usually do if she has physical contact with a person who has lost something.

Just after the Independence Day parade, elderly Mildred Mason asks Dae to find the watch she'd inherited from her mother, which she's lent to her sister Lizzie a few days earlier. Lizzie wasn't answering her phone, and Mildred's (who wouldn't admit to worrying about her sister) request was her way of asking Dae to check on her.

Dae "sees" Lizzie's arm with the watch on it, and goes to her house, but she is nowhere to be found, and when a storms blows in, the townsfolk organize a search party. With the help of new Duck resident and ex-FBI agent Kevin Brickman, finds Lizzie's body, and attempts to convince official investigators that Mildred is not responsible for her sister's death.

The Lavenes are extremely good at creating a Sense of Place. One can almost see the town of Duck** and its residents from their skilled descriptions. Hopefully the second in the series will be published soon.

*Review copy received from the publisher.
**Duck, NC is a real town!