Psychic Passion

Psychic Passion: A Tale of Betrayal How can you trust someone you have never met face to face? By putting his faith in the psychic Andrew Morris, Detective Stephens sets himself up for failure in Sara Herrington’s Psychic passion, a novel of mystery, lust, and betrayal. Ultimately, Herrington’s book is about manipulation, and how easy it is to influence a trusting soul. Detective Stephens is a small town cop trying to make it in the big city of Birmingham, Alabama. He is haunted by his past and suffering accordingly. His wife left him, his kids hate him, and he struggles with a crippling urge to drink. To help cope with these urges, he phones Andrew Morris, who soothes him and feeds him generic psychic dribble: “…I see a change in professions… your soul is afflicted with variant emotions of the past… keep life simple and take a chance on love” (22), and initially doesn’t want to give him any information pertaining to the gruesome murder case he is feverishly working on with his hated partner, Adams. Morris reluctantly admits that it is the work of a serial killer, affirming Stephens growing suspicion. Little does Stephens know, Morris’s reluctance to discuss the case is just a ruse, the beginning of his conniving plan to manipulate Detective Stephens. Morris later divulges his psychic feelings about the case to Stephens. He describes the killers motives, that he is driven by strong feelings of love and hate to kill. He also describes the killer as being “’someone who is charismatic, passionate, and well educated’” (60), traits we later learn apply to Morris himself, when Stephens meets him face to face for the first time. Morris also describes a crime scene he sees in a vision, a tower with a bell, and while they are searching for that building a call comes in about another crime scene. Stephens may think that the call coming in while he is in the presence of Andrew Morris is just a coincidence, but judging by the smile on his face and the fact that “He