Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Book Reviews
Book Review: Dead to Me
By Sandy Amazeen
Feb 19, 2008, 2:45 GMT

Thanks to his gift of psychometry which allows him to view up close and personal, the experiences and history of anything he touches, Simon Canderous once again finds his love life tanked. It’s almost as frustrating as working for New York City’s clandestine, perpetually under funded and overworked Department of Extraordinary Affairs, charged with keeping a lid on the city’s paranormal activity. Simon hasn’t been through all the training his job entails so it is understandable when he fails to recognize the beautiful woman seated in the café with him is actually a ghost. What is unusual is the ghost’s condition, her failure to realize she is dead and the images she claims to have seen. Simon is charged with finding out who she was/is and the circumstances surrounding her death but as he and Connor Christos, his mentor soon discover, something huge is about to go down in the Big Apple. Ghosts, Surrealists, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Fraternal Order of Goodness (F.O.G.ies) come together in a major party that will leave art patrons with an unforgettable experience and bring the D.E.A. into the public eye in an apocalyptic showdown of good versus evil.

In much the same vein as Mark Del Franco’s Unquiet Dreams or John Levitt’s Dog Days, Strout’s urban fantasy debut features plenty of self-depreciating humor, problematic special powers and a quick pace with the added twist of overwhelming government bureaucracy. Strout’s inventive storyline raises the genre’s bar with his collection of oddly mismatched, entertaining characters and not so secret organizations.