Dead Serious by Vawn Cassidy

Narrated by Joel Leslie

I was intrigued by the blurb for Dead Serious, which promised a mystery featuring a socially awkward pathologist trying to find a murderer and a romance between said pathologist and the gorgeous detective assigned to the case. The twist in the story is that the pathologist can see ghosts and is being haunted by the spirit of the murder victim, a sassy drag-queen by the name of Dusty Le Frey; it sounded like fun, and with Joel Leslie narrating, I knew I was in a safe pair of hands, so to speak.

Tristan Everett is a pathologist at the Hackney Public Mortuary in East London, and while cutting open dead bodies is probably not everyone’s idea of a good time, he likes his job and is good at it. Being a bit of an introvert, Tristan kind of prefers the company of the dead anyway – at least he doesn’t have to make idle conversation with them. He’s been persuaded to go to a leaving do at a local pub, where he catches sight of the hottest guy he’s ever seen – but before they can do much more than nod and smile at each other, Tristan somehow manages to get an ice cube lodged in his throat and, unable to breathe, chokes and passes out. When he comes to, he’s on the floor of the pub with Mr. Hottie crouching over him; feeling like an idiot, Tristan is duly wheeled away by the attending paramedics, and doesn’t think he’ll ever see his dream guy again.

Detective Danny Hayes has recently relocated to London from an unspecified town in ‘the North’ (although I couldn’t help wondering how on earth he could afford to move to London on a copper’s salary!) and is chatting to the group of people Tristan was with when his boss calls with a shout, a murder at a club called The Rainbow Room in Shoreditch.

The next day, Tristan is preparing to perform a post-mortem on the body of Dusty Le Frey, a well-known drag queen who was found dead the evening before. Something isn’t right though – a strange prickling at the back of his neck sends goose bumps along his skin and there’s a low buzzing in his ears… he shakes it off and gets to work, only to become aware of a presence beside him. Looking up slowly he sees the person lying on the table in front of him is also standing right next to him!

No prizes for guessing that the the body on Tristan’s mortuary table and Danny’s nightclub victim are one and the same. It turns out that when Tristan choked on the ice cube, he was actually dead for a few seconds before Danny revived him, and that experience has somehow given him the ability to see and interact with the spirit world. The story is (supposedly) a mixture of mystery – Dusty wants Tristan to find out who killed her – and romance, but honestly, the mystery isn’t mysterious and the romance isn’t romantic; there isn’t enough plot or story to fill a full length book and this almost ten hour audiobook felt like it was never going to end.

I liked shy, sweet and nerdy Tristan, and the way he grows into himself a bit as the story goes on, but Danny is pretty bland and they have hardly any chemistry. I was surprised that Danny’s PoV is included, as he has little to contribute that we don’t already get to know in Tristan’s PoV, so those chapters just feel like needless padding. In fact, Tristan and Dusty spend more time together than Tristan and Danny do, and while I enjoyed Dusty as a character – she’s sassy and a lot of fun – the book is billed as a Paranormal Romance, so I was expecting it to actually BE a romance, rather than focused on Tristan and Dusty and their investigation with Danny as an afterthought.

Speaking of Danny, the way he handles the murder investigation is really unprofessional. When Tristan turns up at Dusty’s funeral, Danny is suspicious – but then buys the explanation given to him by one of Dusty’s friends without question. And once he’s decided not to be suspicious any more, he tells Tristan pretty much everything he finds out. Just – no. Then there’s the fact that the blurb indicates that Tristan’s involvement in the investigation has put his life at risk and “the killer now wants him dead, too…” so I was expecting some of the story to be taken up with Tristan dodging attempts on his life, but that doesn’t happen.

I had major issues with the writing. The author appears never to have met a desription she can’t write three or four times over. Every. Single.Thing is over-described, the characters’ thoughts meander on for ages and at one point, Tristan describes, in detail, something we’ve just witnessed, so a simple ‘he told Danny what had happened’ would have sufficed. Then there are the interminable movie references; Tristan is a movie buff and it’s one of the things he and Danny bond over, but it’s all so earnest and fake.

Then, near the end came the moment that would have been the wallbanger had I been reading the book. Tristan asks Dusty a question about a note in her diary that indicates she had a regular weekly appointment with someone; Dusty then goes on to say she’d been having an affair with a man who started to get creepy and stalker-ish when she ended things (after finding out he was married). SHE COULDN’T HAVE MENTIONED THAT EARLIER??! FFS – if you’re going to market a book as a mystery – YOU NEED TO ACTUALLY WRITE ONE, a puzzle that the characters can find clues to and solve, not just have a random series of events featuring a protagonist who doesn’t ask questions and a ghostly victim who wants to find out who killed her but doesn’t divulge important information!

The narration is very good, of course. Joel Leslie brings his considerable technical skill and vocal acting ability to bear, assigning recognisable character voices to the entire cast and differentiating effectively between them all, from cockney wide-boy to posh home-counties lady. His portrayal of Tristan is just right, capturing the character’s innate kindness, his shyness and slight naiveté, and he’s terrific in what are undoubtedly the best scenes in the book, where Tristan visits his elderly father and later, explains the situation to Danny. Danny’s northern accent is consistent (although – and this is personal preference – I didn’t much care for the sound of it) and I appreciated that he doesn’t go over the top with his characterisation of Dusty; it would have been easy to turn her into the worst kind of screechy drama queen, but thankfully, Mr. Leslie doesn’t go there. But just as it’s true that a good performance can elevate a good book, we also know it’s not possible for a good performance to fix a poor book – and while Joel Leslie is one of the best narrators around, he’s not a miracle worker.

If you want a good m/m paranormal romance to listen to, pick up one of S.E. Harmon’s Spectral Files books, or even better, get stuck into Jordan Castillo Price’s PsyCop series. But Dead Serious is a dead loss.

Caz

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