Books like Abby Cooper, Psychic Eye

While I didn't expect an intense, à la Simenon mystery, I didn't contemplate reading something so chatty, either. For the first one hundred pages, it's just useless talk, talk, talk. About the friend of narrator Abby moving out to California, Abby's dog Eggy, Abby and Eggy having breakfast together, Abby's moody clients. I wonder: Does Victoria Laurie perhaps confuse chatty with witty? While there are entertaining moments, and a murder plot finally emerges, Laurie is neither a Janet Evanovich nor a Mary Higgins Clark. Nor should she be. But should she perhaps aspire to slightly more than whipped cream and a little cherry on top? For underneath all that there is very little substance.Does being entertained necessarily mean plunging into vacuity?Laurie is herself a psychic. I would have hoped then for a more interesting character. Although the reader is being warned on the very first page of Chapter One -probably the best, funniest page of the whole novel, that she is boring like vanilla ice cream. All in all, the book has all the commercial ingredients: a superficial mystery and a predictable love story. Plus, on occasion, a voice that could shine but chooses to glow instead. It's fun fluff to take to the beach. As soon as you will be done, your brain will act like waves on sand and erase it all.