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Tuesday, December 14, 2010

NAC Mini Challenge -- Dead to Me by Anton Strout

Whew. I'm home. Some of you may have read that I was traveling (hence the serious lack of posts -- I always say I'm going to prepare better and get preposts ready and I never do. Bad, Becky!)

I was in the lovely Charleston last week spending some time at the office and bumming around town with my coworkers -- who were all fabulous hosts, by the way. I had a super fun time. And like all trips, I spent the night before leaving trying to decide what to bring along to read in my down time.

I settled on just five books for this trip. It was agonizing, but almost perfect considering I made it halfway through book four on the plane ride home.

One of the books I brought along with me was Anton Strout's Dead to Me, first in the Simon Canderous series, and my first pick for Jackie's current mini challenge over at Literary Escapism.

Simon Canderous has the ability to see pieces of other people's lives just by touching something they owned. He'd been using the gift strictly for personal gain until he almost got thrown in the slammer for it. Now he's honing his skills working for the Department of Extraordinary Affairs. He and his partner are dragged into an investigation after meeting a dead woman who seems very much alive. Sure it's fairly common for the dead to not quite realize their time is up, but this woman is special.

Simon's a fun character. He's young, a bit headstrong, but also a bit naive as well. And I love the DEA. Imagine Warehouse 13, X-Files, and Buffy all in one paperback package and you get some idea what to expect.

Strout was my day one read, he got me through 2+ hours in the airport and through my flight to Atlanta. Good stuff!