Plot Summary: Pepper Martin is a cemetery tour guide who can talk to ghosts, and she's made it her mission to solve the mysteries that keep these maligned spirits earthbound. This time around, she's met a spirit in Chicago who believes that a homeless mental health clinic is snatching destitute people for some evil purpose. No one knows, because these people are never seen again. Pepper wants no part of this mystery until she learns that Dan Callahan is involved in the research at this clinic, and Pepper feels personally committed to helping the sexy brain doctor any way she can.
The danger of telling a story in the first person is that the reader must truly like the character, a lot. In my case, I quickly became disenchanted with the heroine, Pepper Martin, and spending hours inside her head was quite unpleasant for me. This is not to say that everyone would feel the same way, but to me, Pepper is a vain, fashion conscious clothes horse, and she's not nearly smart enough to pull off the whole private investigator shtick. I like my heroines tougher, a bit scruffy, and instilled with a fighter's instincts. Pepper's always moaning about being too cold, breaking a nail, or getting her cashmere (insert sweater, gloves, or coat) dirty.
This novel felt like a cross between a chick lit novel and a paranormal mystery. I love the paranormal mystery part, but chick lit happens to be my least favorite genre. Please, no more talk about grossly expensive brand names on everything from shoes to makeup. It's not my thing, but someone into chick lit might like how this book takes a ravishing girlie-girl and gives her a supernatural power, like talking to ghosts.
My distaste for Pepper's personality extends to her relationships with men. I'm a romantic through and through, and I'm not too happy when I read about casual hook ups. It sounds kind of funny coming from someone who enjoys well-written sex scenes (and there aren't any here, so don't look for them), but I like sex and romance to go hand in hand. If it doesn't, I don't want to see it. So, between Pepper having a one-night stand, and then later coming on to Dan, needless to say I was disappointed by the heroine's relationships. It all felt empty and meaningless, which depressed me no end.
The end has a nice twist that I never saw coming, and readers willing to embrace the paranormal aspect of the story will have no problems swallowing the premise. I thought it was quite inventive, but I couldn't help noticing that even when Pepper was in extreme peril, she couldn't drop her shallow, material concerns.