Book 1 of the Simon Canderous series
Read by David DeVries
Genre: urban fantasy
Format: paperback & audiobook
About Dead To Me:
A new urban fantasy featuring a man working on the right side of law-with talents that come from left field.Source: Info in the About Dead To Me was taken from GoodReads at http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1823237.Dead_To_Me?ac=1 on 16/04/2013.
Psychometry-the power to touch an object and divine information about its history-has meant a life of petty crime for Simon Canderous, but now he's gone over to the good side. At New York's underfunded and (mostly) secret Department of Extraordinary Affairs, he's learning about red tape, office politics, and the basics of paranormal investigation. But it's not the paperwork that has him breathless.
After Simon spills his coffee on (okay, through) the ghost of a beautiful woman- who doesn't know she's dead-he and his mentor plan to find her killers. But Simon's not prepared for the nefarious plot that unfolds before him, involving politically correct cultists, a large wooden fish, a homicidal bookcase, and the forces of Darkness, which kind of have a crush on him.
I've had this book in my TBR (to be read) shelf for like forever. I keep picking it up and putting it down. It just can't keep my attention. My mind keeps wandering while I'm reading this book. Safe to say that the story telling quality was not compelling.
What I didn't expect was for Simon to suddenly go all-out stupid in Chapter 12. It seems like he lost all sense of self-preservation all of a sudden. No, that was not it. It seems like he was determined to get killed and everybody else around him. WTF!?! I mean, his life sucks and all, but to get too stupid to live (TSTL)? I didn't see that one coming. He was okey for the first ten chapters. I don't know what happened but it looked like he had a lobotomy in Chapter 12. I had to have frequent breaks from the stupidities. So you couldn't call this book in any shape or form "fast paced" at all. So much so that when I finished this book it was with a sense of relief rather than looking forward to the next book in the series. I was relieved to finally get done with the stupids. Then the plot... what plot? The entire book is just a retelling of about two weeks of Simon Canderous' life with no thought for plot nor story structure, and that's it! So we read about how Simon ran around from danger to danger and being stupid and got saved by sheer dumb luck. While the bad guys stupidly stumbled themsleves into captivity... Yeah, not much of a plot. The world building was sound though. No apparent cracks that I could see. I could totally believe that a hidden world like the one of Simon Canderous could exist side-by-side ours. I also like the premise of an investigative supernatural. But then again that is my favourite genre, just as the Dresden Files by Jim Butcher and the Grimm TV show are my favourites! It's just Simon's stupidity after stupidity after stupidiy which ruined it for me.
Empirical Evaluation:
Story telling quality = 1.5
Character development = 2
Story itself = 2
Ending = 2
World building = 3.5
Cover art = 3.5
Pace = 0.5
Plot = 1
Narrator = 4
Overall Rating: 2 out of 5 cherries
Books In The Simon Canderous Series:
A huge THANK YOU to The Qwillery for hosting a contest which made it possible for me to win paperback copies of Dead To Me, Deader Still, and Dead Matter by Anton Strout!
FTC Disclosure:
No money received for this review.
It's not a dramatization but the book is written in such a way that there is a swapping of POVs as the story is told. And the narrators take turns as their character's POV tells the story. Really fun to listen to
. Specially that I've listened to 
. Ah, lots and lots of brownie points to the author for the twisty plot!! However the theme of Dante batting for the other team is rapidly becoming a tired old tune that I wish 
in the plot. Sure, irritating... But, I choose to ignore it... because I also like 
After sometime I finally decided to cheat and download the audio version. I wanted to persevere with this book because based on my previous experience with this author, her beginnings are not always smashing. I had to plod through 
Right off at the start, the king hired a librarian who is also a failed magician with no investigative experience or knowledge, to investigate the magical assassination to his royal person. At the same time the king paired the librarian to a less-than-useless and bumbling pompous jay. It made me think that the king did not really want the root of the magical assassination discovered
. However, I was pleasantly surprised to find out that, that was just one of the many twists of the plot. Once I got into the story I appreciated the unfolding of the plot and the unexpected turns it took! Kudos for the twisty plot!
... Another kudos for the character development!
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