chez_jae

Ghostly Murder by Lotta Smith

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



I decided to start reading an ebook last night, and I actually ended up reading the entire thing. Ahem. It was Ghostly Murder by Lotta Smith, and it's the first installment in the "PI Assistant Extraordinaire" series, which features Kelly Kinki, who works for PI Michael Archangel, a brilliant transvestite. Think Sherlock Holmes in drag.

Archangel has been called in by the FBI (his former employer) to consult on a puzzling case. A high-profile victim has been found murdered in a locked tennis court. Considering the amount of blood at the scene, investigators are perplexed that there is no sign of ingress or egress to the court. Archangel puts his keen mind to the conundrum, but first he sends Kelly into the nearby woods, in search of either a ski mask, a pair of nylons, or a pair of granny panties. Kelly thinks he's insane, and she's nervous to be in the woods, because a serial rapist has been stalking his victims in the vicinity.

Kelly is recalled when one of the local cops finds a ski mask, and that clue enables Archangel to solve the crime. The story was cute and light, if a bit too short to really get into it. I learned more about Archangel than I did about Kelly, even though the story is in her pov. However, it was just zany enough that I will look for more in the series.

Favorite lines:
♦ "Considering you can be such a pain in the ass, even Hannibal Lecter would think twice about assaulting you if you kept peppering him with questions as he tried to have his way with you."
♦ While my wacko employer was verbally abusing me, Henderson was pretending he wasn't listening. It was the moment I lost my faith in the FBI.

Giving this three stars; might have been four, but it was shorter than I had anticipated.