Synopsis from Goodreads: Peri
Jean Mace’s knack for seeing ghosts made growing up in her rural
East Texas hometown a living hell. Now an adult with her own
business, she thinks she’s finally got things under control.
But
the murder of Peri Jean’s trailer trash cousin, Rae, forces Peri
Jean to face long buried issues. She owes her cousin a favor from
beyond the grave and must solve her murder. The more Peri Jean pokes
around, the more she realizes everyone in Gaslight City has something
to hide.
Uncovering
the wrong secret will send Peri Jean straight into the arms of a
killer.
Stats
for my copy: Kindle edition, Long Roads and Dark Ends Press,
2016.
How
acquired: Given to me by the author's publicist for review.
First
line: An inhuman shriek sliced through the pre-dawn darkness,
stabbing at the haze of sleep coating my brain.
My
thoughts: Peri
Jean Mace is an interesting character. She can see ghosts, a
condition which caused her mother to commit her to a mental
institution as a young child, where the word schizophrenia was
bandied about. She's not the first heroine I've read about who has
the ability to see ghosts, but I believe she is the first who has not
embraced this particular trait. Seeing ghosts has caused Peri to
become an outcast in the little town of Gaslight City, where everyone
is aware of it, whether they believe it's true or believe she's
crazy, but pretend they don't know anything. Even in her own home,
her ability is never talked about, as if it doesn't exist. It was a
different take on the “ghost whisperer” genre, and a welcome one.
The
story starts out a little slow,with Peri's cousin, Rae, shrieking up
a storm and yelling at Chase, her flavor of the month who is also
Peri's best friend. Peri lives with her grandmother, and Rae lives in
a travel trailer parked on grandma's property. When Peri hears the
shouting she flies out to the trailer to shush them before her
grandmother is woken up, and in exchange for Rae shutting up Peri
agrees to owe her an unspecified favor. It was all a little
melodramatic, and the favor for silence a little silly.
But
Rae cashes in that favor pretty quickly when Peri walks into her
trailer later and finds her cousin's been murdered. And then Rae's
ghost appears, and Peri realizes that Rae wants and expects her to
find the killer.
From
there the story picks up nicely. Dean Turgeau is introduced, Gaslight
City's newest deputy, and he and Peri clash from the beginning,
especially since Chase is suspect number one and Dean is determined
to prove it, while Peri is determined to defend her friend. Which
becomes more difficult when Chase pulls a dissapearing act. Dean
brought to mind (to my mind, anyway) Aiden Quinn's Detective Hallett
from the movie Practical Magic.
I
loved watching Peri and Dean dance around each other, and I also
enjoyed Peri's interactions with her childhood friend turned nemesis
Hannah. As Peri gets deeper and deeper into her investigations there
were quite a few twists, and the mystery was unpredictable. I didn't
figure out who the murderer was until she did.
A
nicely written whodunit, which got a bit violent during the big
reveal, but with a satisfying conclusion.
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