Gypsy Psychic Tells All in MIAMI PSYCHIC

MIAMI PSYCHIC: Confessions of a Confidante, Regina Milbourne, Yvonne Carey, Harper Collins, hardcover, 223pp

An interesting book about a psychic of gypsy background operating in Miami, discovering her talent early and pursuing a career helping people, some of them underworld types needing protection spells.

It's an entertaining story and a nice page-turner. One of her early experiences involves helping a crooked transvestite cop who is skimming the cash seizures from drug busts and seeks her protection until he gets enough to support his family and his lover.  In another story, Milbourne helps a Haitian woman who is cursed by her mother's unsuccessful attempt to offer her up as a human sacrifice to a voodoo diety.  A record producer is haunted by his dead brother, a Russian girl involved with a Red Mafia hood seeks help in escaping from the hood's mother-in-law who heads the local drug operations, and Milbourne writes of helping a poor Nicaraguan mother whose teenage daughter has been tarpped into nude modeling.

The problem is that Gina Marie Marks, AKA Regina Milbourne, is popularly characterized by Florida newspapers as a con artist with a crystal ball. Googling her name shows she did not quit her psychic gig after the book came out as she said she would do. She's still charging hefty prices for psychic fixes (in her defense, she claims that the sizable fees compensate her fairly for days of preparation and concentration).  (On the other hand, she says she got a million dollars from the Red Mafia hood for her protection spell.)

According to an article from the Broward/Palm Beach New Times News, Milbourne has been connected with a number of psychic scams (http://www.browardpalmbeach.com/2007-09-06/news/pure-fraud/ ). The reporter points out that it's difficult to find someone to properly investigate cases like this because the cops are not normally trained to handle a case in which someone willingly hand over their money to the person they claim is victimizing them.

I'm withholding judgment on what Milbourne really is all about because she may be a victim of extreme skepticism (although the preponderence of published comment suggests it), but I would say that you can look to this book for a few entertaining hours of reading, but the story needs to be taken with several grains of salt...tossed over the right shoulder.  You might read it if you can get a copy free and are willing to read it without expecting to take anything away from it.  Not exactly a ringing endorsement, I admit.