THE CHICK AND THE DEAD is the second book in Casey Daniels's
series about
amateur sleuth, Pepper Martin. In the first book, DON OF THE
DEAD, Pepper,
a former rich girl who now works as a tour guide in a
Cleveland cemetery, fell
on the job and hit her head on a headstone. When she woke
up, she was
inexplicably able to see the residents of the cemetery where
she worked
(think the Sixth Sense). One of these ghosts, a Mafia don
named Gus
Scarpetti, enlisted Pepper's help to solve his murder. In
return, he paid
Pepper $9000, and nearly got her killed. After what happened
the last time
she stuck her nose in dead people's business, Pepper vowed
never to get
involved again.
Well, that was before the $9000 she earned was nearly all
spent on her BCBG
wardrobe, credit card debt, and current bills. Now Pepper is
running low on
funds, and things will be even worse now that a famous
author, Merilee
Bowman, has come into town and brought with her swarms of
paparazzi and
rabid fans of her successful novel, So Far the Dawn. With
Merilee in residence,
it seems that there will be no need for tours in the
cemetery, and instead the
focus will be on the funerals coming up and residents
already buried.
Dejected, Pepper has no idea how she'll make any money; that
is, until
Merilee's sister Didi—who died 50 years ago—shows up and
asks for Pepper's
help. Didi claims that she wrote So Far the Dawn, not
Merilee, and she wants
Pepper to help her prove it.
THE CHICK AND THE DEAD was a funny, fast-paced mystery that
took no time
at all to read. Pepper Martin is an amusing heroine and the
scrapes she gets
herself into trying to navigate between the world of the
living and the world
of the dead are the stuff romantic comedies are made of.
It's hard to find
mysteries aimed at the younger crowd, since so many of us
have the idea that
all sleuth stories have to be like Sherlock Holmes or Agatha
Christie novels.
With the Pepper Martin series, Casey Daniels has created
entertaining and
easy-to-read mysteries aimed at the 20-something generation.
I haven't had
a chance to read the first book in the series, but THE CHICK
AND THE DEAD
was good enough that I'll probably go back and check out DON
OF THE
DEAD.
Ever since the
former rich girl-turned-Cleveland cemetery tour guide banged
her head
on a headstone, she sees dead people. Worse still, she
hears
them—and they won't shut up! Now it's Didi Bowman, a
poodle-skirted
relic from the Great Beyond, who's bending Pepper's ear,
complaining
that her famous author sister, Merilee, has done her wrong.
Trouble is,
if Pepper proves it, she'll break the hearts of millions of
Merilee's
fans. And if she doesn't, Didi's ghost may never go away.
Pepper needs peace and quiet (and rent money), so the
cash-strapped
ex-heiress agrees to take a job as Merilee's secretary and
dig around
the family tree. But when she unearths more than she
bargained for—like
an illegitimate daughter, a bunch of illicit love affairs, and a
possible murder—suddenly a very poisoned pen is all set to
write Pepper
out of the story permanently.
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