TOMB WITH A VIEW: A Pepper Martin Mystery - Casey Daniels

Cemetery guide and reluctant medium Pepper Martin is always up for some fun that doesn't involve seeing and talking to dead people. So a gig commemorating a dead president can only mean good times are not ahead.....

Since Cleveland's Garden View Cemetery is going to be celebrating James A. Garfield's 179th birthday, Pepper has been assigned to plan it with Marjorie Klinker, know-it-all volunteer and Garfield fanatic. It's enough to send Pepper to an early grave---especially because Marjorie won't shut up about being related to the late president.

But when Marjorie takes an assisted header over the balcony in the Garfield memorial, Pepper needs to solve the case----if only to show up her detective ex-boyfriend. It doesn't help that Garfield's ghost is boring Pepper to tears with his excessive use of his freedom of speech. She's made an executive decision to find a flesh-and-blood killer, and she's going to stick to it----even if it gets her assassinated....

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Oh, how I love Pepper Martin. She'd be the coolest chickie to be friends with just with her weensie snarky personality, let alone her ginchy ability to talk to ghosts.

I feel for her, as snarky as she can be, she's not mean spirited (pardon the pun). The woman she has to work with, Marjorie, is a real piece of work. If it were in me to do so and I knew someone like Marjorie, I'd assist her over the rail too. Marjorie is so well written, I was smacking the book after one of her supercilious tirades.

Pepper's dealing with President Garfield is hilarious. She shows proper respect as much as she can, but he does get a wee bit ponderous in his presidential pontificating, so her patience gets tested.

The mystery is two-fold, plenty of action going on with a mysterious handsome man, murder, and secret visitors at all hours.

Five ghostly mystery beans.....

NIGHT OF THE LOVING DEAD: A Pepper Martin Mystery - Casey Daniels

From the back of the book: Pepper Martin, heiress-turned-cemetery-tour-guide, has her hands full with work, two hotties, and the ghosts of who won't let her rest----or work, or shop---in peace....

The last thing Pepper wants during her Chicago business trip is more ghosts seeking her help, as they've been doing ever since she hit her head on a tombstone. Then again, being bored stiff during a seminar might actually be worse than being with bored stiffs.

The specter of Madeline---a young woman in a lab coat---wants Pepper's help. Before she died, Madeline worked with Dan Callahan, the sexy, mysterious doctor who once saved Pepper's life. According to Madeline, Dan's life is in danger. But, little does Pepper know, there's more to the story, including a devious doctor---and an obsessive, crazy love.....

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Pepper Martin is one of my favorite characters in a book. I can read the books in any order and laugh and empathize with Pepper as she goes through her travails as newly not-rich and with her ability to talk with the dead.

Casey had me at DON OF THE DEAD, the first in the series. Excellent titles and a superb premise.

Pepper has her hands full in this one. She gets to go on a business trip to Chicago for Garden View, the cemetery she works in. She even gets to give a speech, "Reactions to the Resurrectionists in the Planning and Design of the Urban Cemetery". You know Pepper's thrilled as all get out.

Pepper also has a new ghost on her hands and neither living or dead is happy about it. Madeline is as snooty in ghostliness as she must have been alive and Pepper can't stand her, but knows the only way to get rid of her is to help her move along into that light.

It's not an easy trip, but to tell more is to give away the book's story.

I can say I loved this one immensely. Perfectly funny and well told.

Five perfectly funny beans.....

A HARD DAY'S FRIGHT: A Pepper Martin Mystery - Casey Daniels

From the back of the book: Cemetary tour guide and reluctant medium Pepper Martin is enjoying quite a reputation on the ghostly grapevine. So when a free spirit from the sixties needs closure, she knows just who to haunt.....

What happened to a teenager named Lucy one night in 1966 after a Beatles concert? She rushed the stage, kissed Paul, started home with her friends, and was never seen again.

Until Pepper sees her---as a ghost who has heard of Pepper's gift of communicating with dead people and solving their murders. Lucy's spirit can't rest in peace until her body is found and buried. But how will Pepper track down a missing corpse after forty-five years?

With a little help from her friends......

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Pepper Martin mystery series has had me hooked since DON OF THE DEAD. The titles are fab, matching each book's premise. The covers are excellent with Pepper, never full face or looking away from the reader, posing among the tombstones.

Pepper has become quite good at detecting for the dead after solving the last six ghosts' issues. She knows research and hoofin' it around to get answers. She still likes to look stylish doing so and she still isn't overly adoring of her job, but she does love her boss, Ella, and now Ella needs her help. There's a ghost who needs rest, Ella's daughter who needs a mentor and a murderer who needs to be caught. And Pepper is just the right woman for the job whether she wants to be or not.

Five ghost talkin' in style beans......

TOMBS OF ENDEARMENT: A Pepper Martin Mystery - Casey Daniels

From the back of the book: Rocking and rolling in his grave....Cemetery tour guide Pepper Martin never imagined she'd get to meet rock legend Damon Curtis, the bad boy poet who made millions of teenage girls scream. After all, he kicked the bucket years before she was born. But thanks to her newfound ability to chat up the dead, Pepper's got a front row seat perfect for swooning over the still-sexy Damon's latest lyrics. He's convinced that his former bandmate Vinnie Pallucci murdered him back in'71, and he's promised Pepper she won't get any rest or peace until she helps him prove it.

But when Pepper goes behind the music, she finds Vinnie with a knife in his heart and the rest of the band members running for their lives. And if Pepper doesn't snare the killer soon, Damon's next hit from the great beyond might be her swan song.

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Pepper is a go-getter. She's talking to dead people, leading tours of the cemetery, talking to dead people, helping the dead rock star....

I do enjoy this series. The titles are so 'punny' which I always love and Pepper is so cool. I wish I had her taste in clothes and ability to accessorize. But I definitely wish I had her go-get-'em 'tude. She really has to make a go of it after the rug gets pulled out from under here (see DON OF THE DEAD for the reason why) and she takes ghost bull by the horns and does what needs doing to get her spectral charges on the right side of the Light.

Highly recommendable!!!

Five rock'n'roll ghost beans......

AmberKatze Interviewing Casey Daniels

AmberKatze has an interview with the delightful Casey Daniels, author of the Pepper Martin Mystery series. If you haven't read DON OF THE DEAD, THE CHICK AND THE DEAD, or TOMBS OF ENDEARMENT, then you are in for a treat. Her fourth in the series, NIGHT OF THE LOVING DEAD is out very soon and this interview gives a chance to win a signed copy. Casey also writes as Miranda Bliss with the not so paranormal mystery series, The Cooking Class Mystery.