Fiction Addict

Genre: Mystery, Crime, Supernatural

Publisher: Signet

Publication Date: December 1, 2009

Reviewed by Lori Twichell

Sadie Novak has a problem. Well, actually she has several. Her father has just died, her boyfriend’s struggling with his addiction again, his ex-girlfriend is their company’s newest client, she has inadvertently discovered a mummified baby’s remains and now she’s got someone threatening her business and her life. And those are just her troubles with the living. She’s got a whole new catalog of issues surrounding the fact that she can see and speak with the dead who haven’t yet ‘crossed over’ to the rest of their afterlife.

The third novel in the “Ghost Dusters” series has Sadie juggling a lot more than just your typical everyday job stressors. Zack, her boyfriend, has taken on a new client without telling Sadie and she’s less than pleased to discover that it’s his ex-girlfriend, Paula. The job appears to be relatively easy. Paula’s mother is a hoarder and now she’s been stricken with Alzheimer’s. Paula is looking for someone to clean out the house that has become so full of boxes and clutter that it’s become dangerous to enter. As Sadie tries to figure out where to begin, she also discovers that there is a very angry (and very ugly) ghost in the upstairs portion of the house and he’ll stop at nothing to make sure that no one takes his ‘stuff’. When boxes begin flying, the plot thickens as a mummified baby is discovered in one of them. Now we have a mystery. Who is the baby? Where are its parents? How did it end up in the box? And who is the ghost that is so determined that no one touch his stuff?

Dead and Kicking is a fun easy read for someone who is looking to fill a supernatural or mystery fix. The characters are realistic (Honestly, I thought I was the only one who had crazy days like the ones that Sadie had.) and honest. Conversations felt real and honest though a couple of times it felt like Sadie was being dramatic in her responses. Then again with a father who just died but is hanging around, a boyfriend who is hanging out with his ex-girlfriend and leaving all sorts of drugged up voicemails and a ghost chasing her angrily around, I would expect that anyone could tend toward the dramatic.

I enjoyed this book. It was a nice light read for the weekend. It drew me in quickly and I enjoyed following along as Sadie found the clues and picked her way through the mystery. It was also fun, though in a painful way, watching Sadie try to find her way through the pitfalls of her private life. All in all, Dead and Kicking was a fun weekend read that I can easily recommend to those who enjoy the Sookie Stackhouse books or supernatural mysteries in general.