Reviewed by Stephen K.
TITLE: Dead Serious
SERIES: Crawshanks Guide to the Recently Departed #1
AUTHOR: Vawn Cassidy
PUBLISHER: Self Published
LENGTH: 321 pages
RELEASE DATE: October 31st, 2021
BLURB:
In the business of unfinished business…
Tristan Everett had always preferred the company of the dead because they were quiet and didn’t talk back. As a slightly awkward introvert working as a pathologist at the Hackney Public Mortuary suited 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, London’s most infamous drag queen, Miz 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 lamé, 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 mm romance.
REVIEW:
No one does mystery like the Brits. And this is the brilliant first novel in what I hope will be a long, long series. What’s not to love? We have Tristan, a nerdishly cute, if somewhat klutzy coroner, and Danny, a dashing DI (that’s Detective Inspector to us non-Brits) who hails from the North of England. Also there’s Dusty, a recently deceased drag queen, now ghost. (Though she prefers the term Corporeally Challenged)
Both Danny and Tristan are movie buffs, and both are kind of lonely; Tristan because the widowed father who raised him is in a home with degenerative vascular dementia, and Danny because he’s pretty much been disowned by his family after coming out back in Leeds.
Danny has a new job with Scotland Yard and is assigned to solve Dusty’s murder. Tristan gets some invaluable tips (on both the murder and on landing Danny) from Dusty. Yet, admitting to Danny that he now “sees dead people” is a little too “The Sixth Sense” for Tristan. The situations are by turn sexy, and uproariously funny. Dusty’s a bit of a blithe spirit, but stuck in one stiletto. She’s sort of gotten off on the wrong foot with this whole being dead thing. 😉
Danny, Dusty, and Tristan will all steal your heart but the supporting cast has some real appeal as well. There’s Benny, the kid who cleans up Dusty’s former club, the Rainbow Room. There’s Chan, Dusty’s bestie and fellow performer. There’s Maddie, Danny’s lesbian partner at The Yard. There’s even Tristan’s dad, or what’s left of him, given his illness. These are some of the most three dimensional supporting cast I’ve encountered in a while. Since this is a series, who know how many of them will appear in future books?
Not only are the sex scenes hot, but in spots, they’re funny. Their first “moo shu” sex scene resulted in a broken bed, several broken plates, a broken dresser… It had me breaking up as well.
This is the best series opener I’ve read in a long, long time. I’m now eagerly looking forward to book two.
RATING: 
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