Melina Markowitz has more than enough duties to fill her plate. She has taken over running the dojo, still works part-time as a clerk checking people in to the emergency room, and then there's always her job as arcane messenger. Since a near death experience as a child expanded her vision to include those things unseen by mundanes, she has had the task of taking mysteriously arriving packages to their intended destinations. Sometimes there is an address, sometimes just a gut feeling to guide her. Add to that a new arcane messenger apprentice to train, a roommate afraid to step out of the apartment and strangest of all, her new boyfriend, Officer Ted Goodnight of the Sacramento Police Department, and her life is a bit more crowded than she likes.

Then two young men in the same small town die, one by fire, one by an encounter with a semi. On the surface the deaths are unrelated, but Melina knows they both lost their lives only days after she delivered small brown-paper wrapped packages to their doorsteps. It becomes clear someone is using her duties as arcane messenger to deliver death. Still reeling from personal losses caused by her last foray into someone else's business, the last thing she wants is to become involved, but Melina does not like being used, especially as an instrument of death. Against Ted's wishes she begins an investigation of her own to stop the murderer before another young man dies.

Eileen Rendahl's distinctive voice rings gleefully throughout this second in the Messenger series. Melina's sarcastic attitude and her bewilderment at the affection her friends offer her are a delight to read. Although when the sleuthing began I feared it would fall into a hokey "girlfriend foolishly seeks dangerous murderer against advice of the cops" kind of book' that was only a feint for the stellar plot twists yet to come.

Like the best of series books, Rendahl's characters learn and grow from past experience changing the path of the storyline in unexpected directions. DEAD ON DELIVERY and its predecessor Don't Kill the Messenger explore a unique path in Urban Fantasy while relying on strong bones of plot and stinging, hilarious humor to keep a reader enthralled.

Book Summary

There are two men who have bitten the dust after a delivery from Messenger Melina Markowitz. As she tries to put together the pieces of this puzzle, she discovers that the two victims share common friends, common unexplained absences, and a common crime.

Now, dark forces from the local community have been unleashed, drawing Melina into the web of a powerful woman, her voodoo, and her vengeance…

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