Dead Girl Blues
By Joyce and Jim Lavene

• Genre – Cozy Mystery (PARANORMAL)

When Nashville cop Skye Mertz and her husband, Jacob, are killed in a wreck, Skye is given the opportunity to come back for twenty years to raise her five-year-old daughter, Kate. With her ghostly mother-in-law’s help, Skye hopes to be there until Kate is old enough to take care of herself.

But three years into her twenty-year service to Abraham Lincoln Jones, the man who gave her the extra time, Skye is beginning to think life might have been easier before she died.

Abe asks her to investigate the murder of his sorcerer, Harold the Great, a man who was a victim of too many snakes. And the Life Extended People (LEPs – a nice term for zombies) who work for Abe have begun turning into ghosts and disappearing. Only Lucas, the possibly evil, amnesiac sorcerer who lives with Skye and her family, can save her from being the next victim of the deadly curse.

To make matters more complicated, Skye has found a lead in solving the riddle of her husband’s death. She has never believed Jacob died as a result of the crash, but hasn’t been able to prove it. Many other people have lost their lives in the same lonely stretch of highway that he did three years before. Skye goes against Abe’s express wishes to discover the truth with a crazy man bent on vengeance.

Review

This was a very different type of mystery but not sure if I would classify it as a cozy, but very close. A majority of the main characters are zombies – but not the “want to eat your brain” types. They act and look like normal humans other than they don’t need sleep or have to eat food. There are also ghosts, sorcerers, werewolves and even a few “normal” humans. Skye became a zombie 3 years ago so that her daughter wouldn’t have to be raised as an orphan when Skye and her husband Jacob were in an accident and killed. Her MIL, Addie, is a ghost and lives with Skye and Karen. There is also Lucas, Skye’s love interest even if she doesn’t realize it despite them living together. he is a sorcerer that can’t remember his past but knows that he loves Skye.

There is a good balance of characters and several “mysteries” to figure out. The ending is a good cliffhanger setting it up for another book.  Of course I didn’t realize this is the 2nd book in the series which explains why some parts of the story were glossed over because they happened in the first book.  This is why I don’t like to read a series out of order!  It didn’t detract from this book but I think the history of Skye and other characters would be better understood.

We give it 4 paws up and if you like paranormal books you will like this series.  Just start with book 1.

First Book in Series
Broken Hearted Ghoul (Taxi for the Dead Paranormal Mysteries) (Volume 1)

About the Authors

Joyce and Jim Lavene write award-winning, bestselling mystery fiction as themselves, J.J. Cook, and Ellie Grant. They have written and published more than 70 novels for Harlequin, Berkley, Amazon, and Gallery Books along with hundreds of non-fiction articles for national and regional publications. They live in rural North Carolina with their family.

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