Death and Other Occupational Hazards
The joyful, hilarious and darkly twisted murder mystery about the not-so-grim reaper.
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4.0 • 1 Rating
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- $17.99
Publisher Description
'Fall in love with this likeable and flawed version of the not-so-grim reaper’ CULTUREFLY 💀
Good Omens meets Katy Brent in this wickedly funny, joyful and twisted murder mystery.
'Beautifully bonkers' ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐
'I could practically hear Louis Armstrong crooning What a Wonderful World in the background' ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐
'I laughed, I cried (no, seriously, I ugly cried). . . wanted to read it all over again' ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐
Death is having an existential crisis – and honestly, she needs some time off. But the minute she arrives in London for a well-earned break, everything goes terribly wrong:
1. People still insist she’s a scythe-wielding skeleton in a black sack. Spoiler: she’s a woman who'd love a wardrobe upgrade, thanks.
2. Life, her sanctimonious sister, blames her for, well, everything.
3. A string of murders occurs off-schedule. Nothing ruins a holiday quite like an admin disaster.
4. A charming (sexy) scientist shows up, and, of course, he’s hiding something.
5. And she’s stuck in a mortal body . . . while there's a killer on the loose.
But she’ll be fine, right?
After all, who better to investigate a murder than Death herself?
SHORTLISTED FOR THE COMEDY WOMEN IN PRINT PRIZE
'One of my favourite books of any year' IAN MOORE
'A total SCREAM' JANICE HALLETT
'There are shades of Terry Pratchett in Dapunt's debut novel . . . An entertaining page-turner with plenty of metaphysical fun and games' THE GUARDIAN
'Wickedly irreverent and clever' IRISH INDEPENDENT
'Gripped me from the start and kept me hooked to the end' DAILY MAIL
'A constant grin of a novel' SFX
'Wonderfully observed and brilliantly imagined. . . it made me fall more in love with life' LUAN GOLDIE
'A tour de deathly force' ALICE BELL
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Dapunt's witty if overstuffed debut weaves together mystery, philosophy, and inventive worldbuilding. After three and a half billion years of being universally feared, Death decides to take a sabbatical. Her sister, Life, agrees to provide her with the human form of an attractive young woman, set her up with a paralegal job at a London law firm, and provide her with a credit card and a smartphone. At first, Death—who adopts the name Delara Donn—enjoys her new form: the extravagant clothes offer a nice change from her trusty black shroud. Before she can learn the intricacies of small talk and office politics, however, she's shaken by an administrative disaster: someone on Earth is killing people that aren't on Death's to-die list. Horrified, she refashions herself into an amateur sleuth, attempting to ferret out the culprit while nursing romantic feelings for a hunky coworker. The boldness of the conceit carries this metaphysical whodunit a long way, but Dapunt tosses so many balls in the air it's inevitable that she drops a few (the sibling rivalry between Death and Life, for example, feels shortchanged). Still, readers will expect good things from Dapunt to come.
