Don of the Dead by Casey Daniels

Number 69: Don of the Dead by Casey Daniels

I do believe this is the first in a new series featuring Pepper Martin. Publisher's Weekly described it as a cozy mystery mixed with a bit of paranormal romance, which seems fitting enough for me. Basically, Pepper hits her head on a mausoleum and begins seeing the ghost of Gus Scarpetti, a Mob boss that was murdered 30 years ago. He asks Pepper to solve the crime and she agrees to help the spirit. (Ugh. Great! Now I have that Fall Out Boy song stuck in my head. "Lie in the grass next to the mausoleum/I'm just a notch in your bedpost but you're just a line in a song". Honestly, how many songs have the word mausoleum in them?)

Okay, here's my one big issue with the book. We are introduced to a character, Dan the brain man, and we NEVER learn anything important about him. We learn he has a serious lack of fashion sense and that he's fascinated with Pepper's brain, but not why he's so interested in Pepper or what he's doing in the story. I hope that he is in the next installment and that we learn a little more about him and why he's so fascinated with Pepper. He seems interesting, but I don't like how little we know of him given how often he is involved in the story. That just irritated me, especially when I got to the last page and found the set up for the next book without the kind of resolution I was looking for. I really wanted the author to explain him in more detail before ending the book, but I did not get my wish.

Overall, though, I liked it a lot. I've become a big fan of cozy mysteries recently and I love trying out a new series. I'm very adventurous in my reading tastes, even if that sense of adventure doesn't carry over into my real life. :) The premise intrigues me and I'm looking forward to reading more about Pepper in the future. Generally speaking, I find the first book in a new cozy series to be the weakest and I hope that book 2 will be even better than this one.