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    Embrace the Grim Reaper
    Unavailable
    Embrace the Grim Reaper
    Unavailable
    Embrace the Grim Reaper
    Ebook385 pages5 hours

    Embrace the Grim Reaper

    By Judy Clemens

    3/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    In one brief moment of fire and wrenching metal, everything important in Casey Maldonado's life was gone. The car manufacturer was generous with its settlement, but it can never be enough. So she packs up, puts her house on the market, and leaves town. Her only companion: Death, who won't take her, but won't leave her alone.


    She stops on a whim in Clymer, a small blue-collar town in Ohio. Drawn to the town, Casey learns that HomeMaker, the town's appliance factory and main employer, has moved to Mexico, and the town has been rocked by the suicide of a beloved single mother. But many of the citizens don't believe the verdict of suicide. Death encourages her to investigate, and she uncovers information that points to the factory. Was the victim's death a cover-up? Then Casey begins to receive messages that she should leave well enough alone. She decides she'd be better off back on the road, but the murderer can't let her go with everything she knows....

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPoisoned Pen Press
    Release dateJan 31, 2010
    ISBN9781615950256
    Unavailable
    Embrace the Grim Reaper
    Author

    Judy Clemens

    Judy Clemens spends her days in rural Ohio, where she writes, spends time with her family, and eats too much chocolate. She is the author of the Grim Reaper and Stella Crown mysteries, and is a past president of Sisters in Crime.

    Read more from Judy Clemens

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    Reviews for Embrace the Grim Reaper

    3/5

    31 ratings4 reviews

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    • 3/5
      I am a long-time fan of Judy Clemens' other mystery series featuring tattooed dairy farmer Stella Crown, so I looked forward to reading this first in a new series. As I turned the pages, I enjoyed being immersed once more in Clemens' writing style, and I quickly warmed to her main character. Casey Maldonado is an extremely likeable-- and extremely sympathetic-- character. With such a tremendous tragedy in her life, you can't help but want things to turn the corner and start to go well for her. Even though she wants to be left alone to simmer away in her grief, she can't resist checking into the death of this beloved local woman.Small town setting, pacing, story, characters... they're all good, as I've come to expect from this talented writer. Where the book fails, the responsibility falls on my own shoulders. I think I wanted Death to play a much more prominent role than he does. In this book he is pretty much surplus to requirements, off on the periphery eating a chicken leg, or behaving like a pesky housefly. With such a marginal presence, I found it very difficult to "buy into" Death as a character. What can I say? It's still a well-written story, and it should please most readers. Unfortunately, I'm the reader standing towards the back, with narrowed eyes and a skeptical expression.
    • 3/5
      Casey Maldonado survived a flaming car crash. Now she's walking, with Death as her only companion. Yes, THAT Death. Were it not that a few other people -- mostly children -- can see and hear him too, I would have thought that Death was like Ian Rutledge's Hamish in the Charles Todd books - a figure who may or may not be in any sense "real." Death is not as helpful as Hamish, though; Casey really does her own investigating.This is the first of a series, and there are still many unanswered questions about Casey herself at the end of the book. It appears she and Death fall under the trope, so prevalent in television, of companions on the road who stop occasionally to solve crimes and right wrongs -- think Route 66 or Highway to Heaven.I enjoyed this book and it was a struggle not to go in search of the next in the series immediately, but my TBR pile is much too large right now. I'll save the rest of the series for later. Recommended.
    • 3/5
      Overall, I liked this book well enough to where I'll watch for the next audiobook. However at the same time, I'm not so eager to read the next volume to where I'd pick up the paperback book. I'm pretty aware that a good chunk of my enjoyment came from listening to Tavia Gilbert's excellent narration. I do have to disclose that this isn't the type of cozy mystery that I usually like to read. Normally if I pick up series mysteries, I like the ones that are relatively wrapped up by the volume's end without any huge cliffhangers left unresolved. This one did, as the background story of the Pegasus car issues wasn't really wrapped up in the slightest. I have to admit that at times I kept wondering why exactly they were chasing after her so hard. It can't be that hard to discredit one woman if she were to go to the media. The Toyota brake failures of 2010 showed us that a company can continue to operate regardless of publicized company failures. Granted this book came out before that point, but still.That aside, the characters here weren't awful. I liked Casey well enough and she occasionally reminded me of Charlaine Harris's Lily Bard in good ways. The side characters though, they're the ones that often shone the brightest in this book and ended up stealing the spotlight from the main characters when it came time for Casey or Eric to do or say something important. I couldn't help but want to see more of the jealous Layla or of Eric's mother and her partner. I do have to say that it was an interesting twist to make Death such a useless character here. Normally Death would be a predominantly major and important character, if not a potential love interest. That doesn't occur here and at times Death felt like someone who could be removed from the story entirely. This works really well in some scenes, although I'll admit that at times I got a little annoyed because he didn't seem to serve an overall purpose at this point in time. He may become more important as the series progresses, so it can be overlooked in this volume.This is decent and I'll pick up the next book when the audiobook hits my local library, but I will say that I'm uncertain as to how well this would do as an ongoing series. I'd heard that this was originally supposed to be a trilogy, but considering that there's already a volume 4, I'm going to guess that this is no longer the case.
    • 4/5
      Casey is a woman on the run. She's not running from the law or from an abusive relationship, but from her past. We learn that Casey's husband and son were killed in a car accident. She subsequently learns that their car had known mechanical problems and the manufacturer wants Casey to remain silent. Not really a problem since she doesn't want to discuss her husband and son with anyone, except possibly her travelling companion, Death or the Grim Reaper.Casey hitches rides, first from motorcyclists and then from a trucker, and she ends up in Clymer, Ohio - hometown to HomeMaker, an appliance manufacturer. Clymer is truly small-town USA and is suffering from the recent death, supposedly a suicide, of one of its own. The town is also dealing with the idea that almost all of the people in town will soon be unemployed when HomeMaker closes its doors and relocates to Mexico.Casey is soon embroiled in the personal woes of this small town and tries to help out. She helps her new friend Eric, with this soup kitchen and then with the town's production of Twelfth Night. She tries to be there for Eric as he deals with the death of his friend Ellen, but this is a town on the edge. The play's director assumes she is there to watch over him and ensure he repays his gambling debts. The town's sheriff assumes she must be there for some other nefarious reasons.Casey and Eric try to determine the true nature of Ellen's death -- murder or suicide. This question becomes even more worrisome when they learn that Ellen had predicted that the town wouldn't be suffering from the plant closing and that everything would work out. Of course there are lots of little twists and turns throughout the story. There are also numerous discoveries made by Casey and Eric, some personal and others relating to their investigation into the circumstances surrounding Ellen's death. Regrettably Death doesn't have much to say in assisting in this investigation, but you often wonder if he is the reason Casey decides to stay in this small town.Ms. Clemens has written a great mystery with truly interesting characters. I was introduced to Ms. Clemens the author when I was asked to read and review an ARC of Flowers for Her Grave earlier this month. I was so captivated by the characters in the third book of the Grim Reaper mystery series that I promptly went online and purchased the first in the series, Embrace the Grim Reaper. I can't wait for the second book, The Grim Reaper's Dance, to be made available in ebook format so that I can read that as well.