The Sleeping and the Dead
Jeff Crook
Minotaur, Jul 3 2012, $24.99
ISBN 9781250000286
Former Memphis Police Department vice detective Jackie Lyons struggles with unemployment, a divorce, a fire in her apartment and her curse of seeing ghosts. She earns a living by selling photographs of crime scenes. Recently, Jackie bought herself a camera from a stranger though she knows the purchase is stupid as she has a money problem. She is taken aback when the pictures she takes contains ghosts that only she sees.
Jackie arrives at the latest homicide scene of the infamous Playhouse Killer who theatrically poses the victims. However, her new camera enables her to see the murder from a different eerie perspective. Though not her job anymore, Jackie investigates fearing she the Playhouse Killer is someone she knows.
Jackie is a fascinating, vulgar protagonist whose rough coldness and her ghostly acquaintances make for an intriguing refreshing hard-boiled paranormal mystery. Fast-paced, fans will appreciate her whodunit inquiry while guiltily relishing the macabre as the heroine knows the more gruesome the crime scene the higher the sale (mindful of serial-killer cards from the early 1990s and Capone’s crypt).
Harriet Klausner
