The Dead Guy Next Door by Lucy Score

“Life is an adventure to be lived, not a series of repetitive days to survive.”

A nice, normal life. Is that too much to ask? For Riley Thorn it is. Divorced. Broke. Living with a pack of elderly roommates. And those hallucinations she’s diligently ignoring? Her tarot card-dealing mom is convinced they’re clairvoyant visions. Just when things can’t get worse, a so-hot-it-should-be-illegal private investigator shows up on her doorstep looking for a neighbor…who turns up murdered. Nick Santiago doesn’t play well with others. Unless the “others” are of the female persuasion. Wink. He’s a rebel, a black sheep, a man who prefers a buffet of options to being stuck with the same entrée every night, if you catch his drift. When the pretty, possibly psychic Riley lands at the top of the list of suspects, Nick volunteers to find out whodunit. Only because he likes solving mysteries not because he wants to flex his heroic muscles for the damsel in distress. All they have to do is figure out who pulled the trigger, keep the by-the-book detective with a grudge at bay, and deal with a stranger claiming he was sent to help Riley hone her psychic gifts. All before the killer discovers she’s a loose end that requires snipping.

I have read a lot of Lucy Score, and this was just as great! This book was so much fun! Nothing like a little mystery, psychic visions, and some sex! Not as spicy as her regular novels, this one reminded me a lot of Janet Evanovich’s, One For the Money. The majority of the characters in this book have overly idiosyncratic personalities, such as the older generations. I get a little annoyed by that since no elderly person would do the things they did in the book, but the vibe of the whole book was to be eccentric so the characters made it what it was.

Four stars for this first in the series. The action scenes were really well-written and cinematic. I could totally picture this being a movie. There are definitely some laugh out loud moments, I found it a lot more entertaining than the contemporary romance genre. Overall, I enjoyed it. I wish there was more steam, so I look forward to the second book being steamier.