This is a super entertaining book! It is the story of Kate McCall, who basically will only admit to being a way off-Broadway actress, never mind the dog walking or being an apartment manager for a bunch of quirky people. At this moment, she is Farina LeBleu, star of Blood Song and Dance and vampire extraordinaire. Too bad her fangs make her sound as though she’s from another planet. She’s never done much acting beyond commercials that are only watched by insomniacs. Kate is informed that her father, Jimmy, has managed to be murdered by having both eyes shot out of his head. Always knowing her father was a do or die private investigator, Kate had feared this day for a long time.
When Kate attends the reading of the will, she finds her father’s interesting take on life in evidence. Jimmy leaves his blue suit to his cousin, in hopes he will one day get a job. His Volvo goes to his drunken Uncle Mike, although the keys are left with his wife. The house in the Pocono’s goes to his fishing addicted brother, Kevin. To his oldest daughter, who believes money is all there is to life, he leaves all his money, of course. To Kate, he leaves a box and an urn with what little of him there is left. Kate grabs her box and urn and heads home, wondering what she is going to do with her inheritance. The box can always go in the trash, but what does one do with an urn full of ashes?
Kate happens to be the live-in manager of a five-story walk-up brownstone, which she refers to as ‘The House of Emotional Tics.’ Her tenets consist of what you would call ‘different’ people. Edie wears evening gowns and her husband, Ray, likes to speak of the great results he gets with Viagra. Al Cutter complains of a backed up toilet and having to fill Gatorade bottles as a consequence. There’s also a Chinese assassin, who lives in the basement and does the maintenance. Unfortunately, he doesn’t deal with toilets. That is just the tip of the iceberg. There is plenty more for the reader.
This book is made to entertain and it succeeds from the very beginning to the very end. I found Kate to be a deep character with a sense of humor that doesn’t end. Even though she is shaken by the death of her father, she is constantly involved with her tenants and their strange ideas of how life should be lived. They are basically good people who are more than willing to help her find out who murdered Jimmy. I would not change a single one of them, even though she finds them to be a pain in her backside occasionally. I think Kate is right where she needs to be. People fill her life with their love and care, and she reciprocates by desiring to embellish the lives of everyone she comes in contact with.
The rating:
- Genre and general reading age – Comedy/Suspense. Can these two be mixed? Reading age is adults, just because there is a lot of story.
- Level of sexuality – Low.
- Is there graphic language? Not so much that I noticed.
- Did I cry? Certainly not.
- Did I laugh? I certainly did.
- Is this part of a series? Yes, the McCall & Company series.
- Level of character development – Kate is a deep character to begin with. I don’t think she or her supporting cast need any help.
Naturally, this book has 
stars.
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