Invisible Curtain by Alex Morgan

Corey Shaw is torn between a vacation with his family, his burgeoning attraction to handsome dancer, Raul and solving the mystery behind a series of explosions that follow the ship from London across the Baltic Sea. Can he protect the ones he loves and identify the terrorist before an even greater tragedy occurs?
Paranormal sleuth Corey Shaw is enjoying vacation with his family in the Baltic Sea when terrorists bomb restaurants hosting World Cup parties in London and Copenhagen. On each occasion the explosion coincides with the cruise ship leaving port. Although the United States isn’t attacked directly, Corey and his colleagues are unavoidably drawn into the investigation with or without the blessing of international intelligence agencies. When a third bomb goes off in St. Petersburg, Russia, Corey is convinced the answer lies aboard his ship.
He must use all his psionic abilities to protect his family, and his friends, and keep the world safe from this worrying upsurge in international terrorism

Corey Shaw is back! This time our favorite psychic detective has toned down his man-whoring and turned up his psionic sleuthing. Invisible Curtain finds Corey on a cruise of the Baltic Sea to celebrate his mother’s 70^th birthday. Spending two weeks on a cruise ship with your mother and five siblings is bound to put the damper on one’s libido, but Corey still manages to find a willing partner among the ship’s dance staff. Despite his best intentions and incurring his sister’s wrath, he also finds himself drawn into the investigation of terrorist bombings that seem to be connected to the ship.

While Invisible Curtain is the third book in the series, it can be read as a standalone as the references to the previous books are minimal and don’t relate to the storyline of this book. That said, Corey is a delightful character and reading the prior books give you more of a glimpse into his personality and the improvement in the author’s writing style from book to book. Having read Breathless and Murder at the Green Lantern, I can easily say that I love Corey Shaw and the world the author has created. Corey’s character is fun, outgoing, and unabashedly sexual. He takes his job as a Psionic Detective seriously without taking himself too seriously. I enjoyed the introduction of Oleg and that Corey got to meet one of the individuals who inspired the creation of the agency he works for. And while being stuck with his siblings for two weeks was almost more than Corey could take, I liked that we got to see the toned-down family side of him. It is clear that he loves his family, especially his mother, so it was nice to see those interactions and to learn that Corey’s psychic abilities came from his mother. The Al-Qaeda/terrorist bombing plotline lends a level of realism that provides even more suspense to this book. However, the fact that homosexuality is against the law and punishable by death is completely ignored in the story and renders one of the plotlines a bit too fantastic for my taste. I have no problem suspending belief when reading paranormal and sci-fi romances, but ignoring an established religion’s belief system or a country’s laws is problematic for me unless the author specifically addresses how it has changed in the world they’ve crafted. That said, I still enjoyed the heck out of the Invisible Curtain and hope that Mr. Morgan is busy working on the next installment in the series because I need me some more Corey Shaw.

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