Week 39 Review: A Grim Reaper's Guide to Catching a Killer

From Goodreads:

Sometimes it takes working with the dead to start living.

Kathy Valence is forty-two, mid-divorce, and pregnant with her ex's baby. She's also a modern-day grim reaper employed by S.C.Y.T.H.E. (Secure Collection, Yielding, and Transportation of Human Essences), but frankly that's the easiest part of her life right now. Or at least it was, until her latest client's soul goes missing.

When she finally tracks down seventeen-year-old Conner Ortiz, he angrily denies he died of natural causes, despite what his file says. He insists that someone at S.C.Y.T.H.E. murdered him, and he demands Kathy find out who and why.

Kathy has only forty-five days to figure out what happened to Conner and help him move on before the boy's soul is doomed to roam the Earth as a ghost forever. She's forced to rely on the help of her retired mentor, her almost ex-husband—and some sneaky moves by Conner himself. This is the wildest case of her career. . .and one wrong move could cost Kathy her job, not to mention her life.

My Review:
I had such a fantastic time reading this book! The idea that reapers went through a rebrand and went corporate, was such an interesting idea, and to have this lady who works for S.C.Y.T.H.E. have a soul collection go awry and she has to investigate? Yeah, I had to read this book!

First off, the tone of this book was so much fun to read! If I were to describe it, I would say it's a kind of dry, situational kind of humor, which I really enjoyed. Like the fact that she's divorcing her husband because she can't tell him about her job, but they still love one another. Which is good, because she's pregnant with their kid. 

While that's going on in her personal life, in her professional one, the one place where she hasn't screwed anything up, things are going badly, with this soul that insists that he was murdered by one of her co-workers, and wants it solved before he'd move on. Which when the policy is to bring them in right away? Yeah, it was an upheaval for certain! 

The investigation was a lot of fun to read, she really had to go outsider of her comfort zone, and I loved watching as the time was ticking down and the pressure was mounting! The little family that they created, I really adored it, because Simon isn't a typical romance hero, he's just a typical middle-aged man. And I hoped that it would end the way that it did, and that was so cute! 

Loved reading this book and I can't wait to see where the series will go from here! 

Author: Maxie Dara
Series: SCYTHE Mystery #1 
Read: September 27th, 2024 
Source: NetGalley 
Reason Why: Sounded really good, and it's a DAC Book and a Prequel & Sequel Challenge 2024 Book!
Publisher: Berkley 
Expected Publication: October 1st 2024

5/5 Hearts

5/5 Books

5/5 Stars