Customer Reviews

The Remains of the Dead (Ghost Dusters Mysteries, No. 1)

5 star:		(23)
4 star:		(15)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Sadie Novak, former teacher has started her own business. Scene-2-clean, a cleaning company that specializes in cleaning up death scenes. After the tragic suicide of her brother Brian, Sadie found the tragic truth was after, murder, suicides and other death, the police don't clean up the mess and it usually falls to the family.

She wanted to prevent other families from having to deal with the horror of this job after the death of a loved one. Being the only company in Seattle that deals with this type of cleaning and being recommended by the police has made her company a success.

The only problem for Sadie is that along with cleaning up, she has also discovered that she had the ability to see and speak with the dead. Many of them not able to leave as they still are unaware that they're dead. Sadie isn't too pleased with this part, but does get a good feeling when she is able to help the spirit pass on. Unfortunately, suicides do not appear to her and that is her one regret, that she couldn't ask her brother why he committed suicide and it has haunted her for the last five years.

During what she considered a normal cleanup at the murder-suicide house of Grant and Trudy Toth, Sadie is surprised when the murdered wife appears to let her know that her husband did not kill her. Unfortunately, Sadie had helped Trudy leave a little too soon and the woman disappears before she could tell her who the real killer was.

With her ex-cop, employee Zack, as backup, Sadie is determined to right this wrong, especially when someone tries to scare her off by shooting at her and by trying to make it appear she is stealing valuables from the homes she's cleaning.

Will she be able to convince the police that Grant did not murder his wife before someone silences her for good?

Highlights:

Sadie, who turned the tragedy of her brother's suicide into a business that helps other people. I had never thought about this before, who did clean up after a crime. Sadie is very smart and does real investigation into solving this crime as the police have the perfect scenario for murder-suicide and don't see any reason to change it.

Zack, ex-cop, who had taken a bullet for his partner, got hooked on painkillers and resigned before they could ask for his badge after roughing up a suspect. He kicked his painkiller habit but had found it hard to get a job until Sadie came along. Very nice guy, ready to back up Sadie with advice and his gun. Not too thrilled about her talking to dead people he can't see while they're cleaning.

Pam - her best friend - special ed teacher who has helped her through her worst times.

Maeva - The psychic her sister Dawn drags her too. Maeva can talk to the dead who have already crossed over, but she has a little trouble convincing Sadie of that, even though she has a message from Grant Toth, who obviously doesn't want everyone thinking her murdered his wife either.

Sadie and Zack cleaning up a store that sells sex toys, with a son who's more worried that he can't open the next day than the fact that his father had been murdered in a robbery the night before.

Hairy - her pet rabbit who sleeps with his own little stuffed rabbit.

Good mystery, although the killer is obvious long before Sadie figures it out.

This book is able to walk that very fine line between being able to bring humor to a subject that could easily have gone off into bad taste.

The ending - the last 2-3 pages brought tears to my eyes.

Lowlights:

The killer: As if often the case in first books, the author doesn't quite have that magic touch to hide who the killer is. As they try to lay the clues so that the ending makes sense, they haven't yet got that ability to confuse the clues enough that the real killer isn't so obvious.

For a book that I was hesitant to read, I found it to be well-written, enjoyable, humorous, without going into sick humor and I am looking forward to the next book in the series.

Wow...this book exceeded my expectations. I began reading because the story is set in Seattle, Washington, although the setting isn't shoved down our throats with details of landmarks. But I found myself really caring about the complex heroine, who's mourning her brother while maintaining a rather gruesome business. She reminds me a little of Sharon McCone, but with a few twists.

The supernatural details are handled well -not overdone, not in our faces, but surprisingly plausible. Heroine Sadie gives a realistic "yuk" when she inadvertently touches the dead and she's gotten pretty irreverent about telling it like it is. In some ways, I was briefly reminded of the TV series, Dead Like Me, which I loved. And at the very end (do not peek!) you get a wonderful surprise.

It's rare to get a book that combines qualities of The Sixth Sense movie, the Sharon McCone mystery series (early volumes) and more. The plot and pacing are flawless - twists ad turns in just the right places.

In a few places, the writing seems a bit awkward, as though the author still learns to move her characters around. But I soon stopped paying attention because the plot held me.

And I must say I was surprised at Sadie's choice for a pet - rabbit named Hairy. Gimme a break. Even a cat would be better.

But the *worst* part is we have to wait a whole year for the next
volume.

I could not put this book down. I was hooked from the first page. Thirty-two year old Sadie Novak, is the owner of Scene-2-Clean, a crime scene cleanup company in Seattle, Washington. I immediately like Sadie. She is smart, has common sense and at times has a great sense of humor. She also shows great compassion when dealing with the grieving next of kin. And then there's this little thing of being able to see and talk to ghosts. Sadie and her lone employee, Zack Bowman, get a call to clean up a crime scene where a murder-suicide of a husband and wife took place. The ghost of Trudy, the wife, appears and insists that her husband did not kill her. Sadie is reluctant to get involved, but soon gets caught up in trying to find out who did kill Trudy and her husband.

I enjoyed the relationships between all the characters. Sadie, Zack and Sadie's best friend, Pam, compliment each other well. Sadie and Zack have great chemistry. There is definite potential there. Pam brings a lighter side. She is spunky and upbeat, but not to the point of being annoying. There is also a Medium named Maeva. I laughed out loud at the bickering between her and Sadie. I really hope Maeva shows up in future issues.

I wasn't sure what to expect with the talking ghosts, so I was pleased when the author pulled it off very nicely. There was nothing cheesy or cheap about it. The author does an excellent job with detail, so if you have a weak stomach and like to snack while reading, like I do, leave the snacks for another time! There was nothing really surprising about the mystery itself. I pretty much had it figured out by the middle of the book. However, it was an entertaining read getting to the conclusion. There was a surprising twist at the end. Looking back, the author did drop clues about it, but I failed to put two and two together. I am not going to say anything else about it, as I don't want to give anything away. The only bad thing I can say about this book is that I have to wait a whole year for the next book in the series.

For those that it matters, this book is written in third person.

Reviewed by Rachael Dimond

The Remains of the Dead is the first book in a new mystery series. The story features Sadie Novak, the owner of Scene-2-Clean, a crime scene clean-up company. Sadie runs her small business with the help of an ex cop named Zack. Together they clean up after the deceased so the family doesn't have to deal with such a horrendous task.

Sadie has a secret. She can see and talk to the ghosts in the houses she cleans. Usually they have a last wish to be granted or something that needs to be handled. But a lot of the time they just need some answers and to be told that they can let go and move on now.

Sadie and Zack's latest case is a murder-suicide of a husband and wife named Grant and Trudy Toth. While cleaning up the crime scene, Sadie meets a man named Kent, who she mistakes for a ghost, wandering around the Toth's house. After realizing Kent is a live person, Sadie wonders who this man is and why he was in the home of the Toth's. Something doesn't seem right to Sadie so she waits for the ghosts to appear and tell her what happened.

When Trudy Toth's ghost appears, Sadie assumes she will just tell her who killed her, if not her husband, and then that will be it. But Trudy's ghost can't talk for some reason and just gestures manically for Sadie to understand her. How will Sadie solve this case if she's having trouble communicating with Trudy's ghost? Did Trudy's husband Grant kill her and then himself or is this an elaborate cover up for murder by an outside perpetrator?

The Remains of the Dead is an exciting and fun mystery that deserves to be read all in one sitting. Sadie is a loveable character with a dark past and I look forward to learning more about her in the next book in the series. The mystery is tightly plotted and not even the most experienced mystery readers will be able to uncover the answer to this puzzle.

Armchair Interview says: This IS a 5-star mystery--and fun, too.

Sadie cleans up the scenes of violent deaths. Sadie sees the ghosts of the people who died those violent deaths. Fortunately for Sadie, she must be at the scene of the death in order to commune with these ghosts. When Sadie meets a fortune-telling psychic who communicates with ghosts almost at will, she is at first cynical and disbelieving of Madame Maeva's talents, but when she comes to accept that Maeva is not a fraud, she feels less alone and abnormal about her own talent. I've got a feeling that Madame Maeva will be in future books.

I thought there were some serious typos in the last chapter, but they were really clues that I completely missed, and led right up to an ending that was almost a complete surprise.

In spite of the subject matter, this was a quick and easy read, and a mostly enjoyable story. The descriptions of the look and feel of the gruesome remains of violent death were a necessary part of having the reader understand what Sadie and Zack's jobs involved, and definitely belonged in the book. However, the chapter of the cleanup in the sex-toys store came off as gratuitous erotica that did nothing to advance the story for me.

What a pleasant surprise this book was! One thing that was refreshing is that it's narrated in the third person. Each of the characters seemed fairly well developed for a new series, with more than enough intriguing glimpses into them to make me impatient for the next installment. The death-scene clean-up work, although graphically told, was still fascinating to me. In short, this seemed like a very "genuine" story, for lack of a better description. And the very last twist, oh my, I did not see that coming! Good stuff. :)

This book was recommended to me by a book store when I was there signing my own books. I bought it, stuck in my tote bag, and forgot about it until I found myself on the plane back to Los Angeles. The Remains of the Dead hooked me on page 1 and before I knew it the plane was landing in LA.

Sadie is a wonderfully complex and real character. I found the description of her work fascinating with just enough detail to be informative without being too graphic.

I'll definitely pick up the next one.

I loved finding a new amateur sleuth book that's not over the top silly. Wendy Roberts has written a very compelling mystery with characters that are real people, with real, emotional lives. The paranormal aspects were well-handled and did not dominate the story. I really loved her writing, and the twists kept me interested, even if the killer was dead obvious halfway through the book. Hopefully the next in the series will be out soon.

I was really intrigued when I saw that this first book in the "Ghost Dusters Mystery" series was concerning the totally unheralded job of cleaning up the aftermath of the death of a person, whether from natural causes, suicide, or criminal activity. This book had a very interesting premise, one which caught my attention immediately. Unfortunately, it lost my attention very quickly. I continued to read because I hoped the author would settle in and make the decision of what type of novel she wanted to write. What I ended up reading was a semi scientific/chic-lit/mystery/paranormal/fluffy/cozy/whodunit. Now perhaps some of those elements could have been melded together to form a cohesive whole, but not all of it in one book.

First of all, the Ghost Dusters aspect immediately takes away from the seriousness of the profession this character was engaged in. If this had remained more on the serious side of the mystery novel equation, it would have stood a better chance of remaining interesting despite the heroine who seemed to have a split personality. One minute she was kidding and joking around with her male employee and thinking of him in physical, personal ways and within four or five pages was incensed that he might not remember he was an employee and she was the boss. Actually, he acted entirely properly in each situation, it was the female lead who had all the problems. And did I ever get tired of all her problems! Can you really spend five years fixating on the suicide of your brother (and the majority of a novel) and then within a few paragraphs decide you are over that and it's time to move on? In every situation Sadie Novak flip-flopped on the issues. It was extremely disconcerting for me. I never could empathize with her because she kept changing her position. In this day and age is it actually possible for Sadie to have seriously thought that she was the only person with paranormal abilities? Please! And just how many times can you read about a heroine literally drowning her personal problems in alcohol and watch her suffer the consequences without giving up on that character?

I think this book had a very interesting premise which could have made for an extremely interesting novel. Quite frankly I think the ghosts Sadie talked to were pretty much a wasted element in the story. She was so slow to pick up on the clues given to her by the ghost who counted the most that it was very frustrating to read about. And I had this one solved before page 100. That's horrible! And another horrible thing: that whole episode with the porno store was completely useless and a total waste of my valuable reading time. It had absolutely nothing to do with the story. Evidently it was thrown in as a way to talk about sex toys and maybe to add page length to the book. I gave this book a rating of 2 stars because it was extremely obvious where the author had received technical help or done research on the subject of crime scene clean-up and those portions were of interest to me. I honestly think she should have kept this story in a much more serious vein to maximize the potential of this subject matter.

I bought this book on a whim and am so glad that I did. I was intrigued from the first page through the last. The characters and plot were all well developed and engrossing. This book had everything: comedy, mystery, suspence, romance, supernatural aspects, adventure, and much more. The Remains of the Dead is a definite keeper and Wendy Roberts has immediately been added to my must have list.