The Dead Girls Detective Agency (review)

One minute Charlotte gets a hard push from behind on a subway platform, and the next she's waking up in a hotel lobby, where a girl named Nancy helpfully informs her that she's dead and that she will need to stay in the hotel until she can find her murderer. If she succeeds, she will receive a key that will open a door to the next phase of eternity, but since no one who has ever gone through the door has ever returned, details about what's on the other side are rather sketchy. As Charlotte gets her bearings, she learns that she and Nancy have company in this motel of mysteries, namely a stylish, somewhat shallow girl named Lorna, a surly, disgruntled girl named Tess, and the inevitable brooding-but-dateworthy dead guy named Edison. Nancy and Lorna, with the reluctant help of Tess, help the newly murdered solve their cases so that they can pass on, but they themselves either can't solve their own or have decided that they prefer to stay on this side of the door for personal reasons. Charlotte's case unfolds in a rather humorous high school romance plot, as she watches her supposedly loving and loyal boyfriend accept the consolation of no fewer than three cheerleaders; in fact, despite the grim circumstances, this is a mostly light-hearted and comic take on murder and mayhem, with copious Ghostbusters references and an afterlife romance for Charlotte in the offing. The logic is frustratingly inconsistent, however, with the ghosts' abilities bafflingly variable, and the plot takes too many detours on the way to solving Charlotte's murder. Nonetheless, crossover fans of detective fiction and fantasy will find these blithe spirits appealing.