Dead To Me

Well, this was a weird one. Dead to Me by Anton Strout was a cross between a superhero comic book and Maxwell Smart. It started off fairly serious in tone as far as plotline—an overworked paranormal government guy has a job to do, the main one being to figure out how to help a ghost cross completely over. Even from the beginning, humor lurked on the edge of nearly every scene—although sometimes I wasn’t sure if a particular event was written in bad taste or if the author was trying to be funny. As the book progressed through a series of events and escapades, it became zanier and more infected with puns—there were puns about everything from the predictable politician slams, wordplay, the publishing industry, chick-lit (could this book be the urban fantasy for chick-lit readers?? No, wait! Urban Fantasy for Cozy Readers!) with special jokes saved for corporate American and the government. Some of the humor was good, some bad, and there were the occasional groaners that could cause serious stomach injury.

The book had plenty of action—Strout won’t waste your time walking or taxiing to a particular place. He gets to the point and there are enough people, zombies and bad guys trying to kill him and the people he tries to protect that there’s never a boring moment. A few confusing ones perhaps, but I think I was mostly confused over whether to laugh or just accept the corny spots as comedy.

The main character is Simon, a psychometric individual who works for the secret government organization, Dept of Extraordinary Affairs—in New York, of course. He can divine a lot of information about people or objects just by touching them, and he’s supposed to use this power to help solve problems at the DEA. His life gets rather complicated when he falls in love simultaneously with a ghost and also with a woman that works for the dark side. He wants to help the ghost find her way to where she belongs, but it’s possible the woman working for the dark side has something to do with the ghost becoming a ghost in the first place. Well, that’s one of the plots, probably the most obvious one. The other main plot is that Simon and the DEA must try to figure out why so many ghosts/spirits aren’t crossing over properly.

There were some other interesting plotlines that Strout left open—like an important event that occurred during the boyhood years of Simon’s mentor, Connor. I’m guessing he’ll pursue that in another book. Most of this book Simon was learning to harness his powers and explore their range—sometimes this came across as action-packed drama and sometimes it was farcical, but it seemed the author was poking fun at certain stereotyped characters or overused story devices.

All in all, this book sets out to entertain on several levels and it does the job, although it can be a bit jarring to have a pun or two within a heart-pounding action scene. Simon is an interesting character with moods that shifted rapidly, changing the underlying tone of a particular scene quickly. He has interesting powers, but they are limited enough that Simon cannot rely upon them to get keep him out of any physical dangers. It’s whimsical at times, weird, corny and fun, sometimes all on the same page.