by Vawn Cassidy
Rating: 4.5 🌈
Dead Serious is straight up marvelous. It gave me a “new to me author” to look for more novels and the start of a clearly fabulous series checks so many of my must have narrative elements.
Dead Serious has a layered storyline that includes a complicated mystery, ghosts, romance, and characters with emotional depth and histories that enrich themselves and the story.
I was hooked from the beginning when I met Tristan Everett, pathologist at the Hackney Public Mortuary. He’s socially awkward, great at his job at conducting autopsies, remembering the people he’s working on with respect. Something that proves important later. Tristan is engaging, real, and someone we connect with.
The story that quickly draws the reader in starts a tad before the case of the murdered drag Queen Dusty Le Frey, a charismatic character herself. It’s the surprising event that happens at a retirement party for a colleague of Tristan’s that will have reverberations for this book and series, actually all of Tristan’s life.
Cassidy weaves the impact from that event on Tristan’s life continuously throughout the story. And probably stories to come. The implications are that huge.
While that’s happening, there’s a mystery to solve, a poignant father/son relationship to reveal, a sexy romance with a hot detective, and a new expanding group of friends for the introverted Tristan to draw on for support and affection.
Honestly, what a fabulous story and group of people.
I adore them and am moving onto the next in the series.
Highly recommending it for the romance, mystery, fabulous characters and found family!
Crawshanks Guide to the Recently Departed series:
◦ Case 1: Miz Dusty Le Frey
◦ Case #2 : Mrs Delores Abernathy
Goodreadshttps://www.goodreads.com › showDead Serious Case #1: Miz Dusty Le Frey by Vawn Cassidy
Description:
In the business of unfinished business…
Tristan Everett has always preferred the company of the dead because they usually don’t talk back. Being a somewhat awkward introvert working as a pathologist at the Hackney Public Mortuary suits him just fine. That is, until a freak accident with a rogue ice cube and suddenly he can see ghosts. No longer content to just lie on the table and let him figure out how they died, they’re now peering over his shoulder critiquing his work and confessing their most lascivious sins before skipping off merrily into the afterlife.
Just when he thought his life couldn’t get any weirder, sassy drag queen, Dusty Le Frey, is wheeled in with a toe tag and she’s not prepared to go quietly into the light. Not only is she furious at the prospect of spending eternity in last season’s gold lame, she’s determined that he help her solve her murder.
Suddenly Tristan finds himself thrown into a world of sequins and fake eyelashes, and worse still, he may have developed a bit of a crush on Scotland Yard’s brand new drool-worthy detective, Inspector Danny Hayes, who’s been assigned to Dusty’s murder. Oh, and as the icing on top of a really crappy cake, the killer now wants him dead too…
All he ever wanted was a simple life but suddenly he’s juggling work, a deliciously sexy detective, a stubborn ghost and a relentless murderer… and things have just gotten dead serious….
From author Wendy Saunders writing as Vawn Cassidy comes this hot and funny, slow burn, opposites attract paranormal caper across the East End of London.
———-
Unless it’s noted, all books reviewed have been purchased by the reviewer.
Scattered Thoughts and Rogue Words 