by Terrance Mc Arthur

Details at the end of this post on how to enter to win a copy of Another One Bites the Dust, along with a link to purchase the book where a portion goes to help support KRL & an indie bookstore.

After being yanked from a 30-year time loop, Jensen Murphy is a semi-well-adjusted ghost in Chris Marie Green’s second Ghost for Hire book, Another One Bites the Dust. She doesn’t really trust Amanda Lee, the psychic who released her from replaying her murder, because she used her to play detective and try to get a murder confession from an innocent man. Jensen isn’t trusted by Gavin, who she haunted and invaded his mind. She is confused by (and attracted to) a being who wears the image of her long-ago boyfriend, and who wants to put Jensen in his collection of souls. Then, there is a dark spirit (not nice at all) who was accidentally released by Amanda Lee during what was supposed to be a phony séance. Of course, Jensen’s detective work has attracted the attention of a wide variety of ghosts who help and sometimes, interfere.

Where the first book (Only the Good Die Young) was a paranormal, urban-fantasy mystery, trying to trap a murderer, this book is more of a thriller. A cyber-friend of Gavin’s ghost-seeing sister is concerned about a friend’s possessive boyfriend, fearing that he might turn fatally violent. We know he’s bad news, but the question is…can Jensen curb his evil, and if she can’t, how will it erupt?

Jensen was killed in the 1980’s, but her spirit is still barely out of her teens, so she is still subject to conclusion-jumping, childish romance, and pity parties. The friends of her youth are middle-aged and disillusioned by lives that have not lived up to their dreams, but Jensen is still filled with the enthusiasm they had left behind. As she learns to use her ghostly powers and be more than just an ectoplasmic Nancy Drew, she is starting to grow up…while she tries to find out who killed her.

Green has built a lively world for her dead, riding telephone wires for transportation and gaining power charges from their death-place or frightening people or hanging around car batteries. There is some “teenish” romance, adult angst and foul language which take it into the upper YA level. A lively read about the dead, it avoids the lots-of-atmosphere-and-explanation, not-much-story trap that snares some writers. Casper the Friendly Ghost it isn’t…thankfully!

To enter to win a copy of Another One Bites, simply email KRL at krlcontests@gmail[dot]com by replacing the [dot] with a period, and with the subject line “Bites,” or comment on this article. A winner will be chosen December 20, 2014. U.S. residents only. If entering via email please include your mailing address.

Check out more fantasy book reviews in our fantasy and fangs section.

Use this link to purchase this book & a portion goes to help support KRL & supports an indie bookstore:

Another One Bites the Dust: Jensen Murphy, Ghost For Hire

Terrance V. Mc Arthur is a Community Librarian for the WoW! (WithOut Walls) Division of the Fresno County Public Library, roaming the Valley to meet the public’s information needs.