Pepper Martin is an ex-rich girl. When her physician father is imprisoned for welfare fraud, she is forced to take the only job she can. She is a cemetery tour guide at Garden View Cemetary.

A fall leaving her unconscious left her with the ability to see ghosts. She embraces this new career as a paranormal investigator. As P.I. to the dead, She needs to help a dead felon clear his name.

This is the 5th book in the Pepper Martin series, but I read it as a standalone. The plot is refreshing and different. I like the characters and their camaraderie. ( )

Pepper gets tied to a group of ex-crimminals and finds they are more than she expected. They are tied together in some weird reality show. A new ghost needs her help and he happens to be dead prison warden. He has been accused and found guilty of murder, but say's he didn't do it. She takes on the case and is bruised, and battered along the way. She gets help and support from a source she would have never thought to get it from. She also suffers several loses. ( )

Casey Daniels' Pepper Martin series is a hoot. Pepper is a tour guide at a cemetery. In the first book she fell and hit her head on a tombstone. Since then she sees the dead, mainly those who have a problem with either the way they died or how they were innocent of a crime. They hire her to get to the truth. In this latest installment, Dead Man Talking, Pepper is taking part in a reality show that showcases the renovation of two cemeteries. The deceased who needs her help is a former prison warden who was accused of killing a woman. Pepper is lovable and humorous. I'm a series reader but you can jump in anywhere you want. The water is hot. ( )

Pepper is just recovering from her last adventure when she is assigned to work on a restoration at the Monroe Street Cemetery. This is really not so bad until she finds out that the restoration is being turned into a reality show, Cemetery Survivor, by the local PBS channel. So now she is the captain one of the teams, which just happens to be made up of a group of folks who are all on probation. Oh, well, it could be worse. Enter the ghost of Jefferson Lamar, pleading with her to clear him of the murder he had been convicted of in 1985. Grrrreat!!!

This is a wonderful series. Pepper is really developing nicely and learning to deal with her own issues as well as those of the departed. I really enjoyed the folks on her team and I hope we might see some of them again. ( )

"Dead Man Talking" is the fifth Pepper Martin mystery. The series follows an ex-socialite whose family is suddenly in disgrace (her father is actually in jail) and Pepper must work to make a living for herself. She finds herself getting a job in a cemetary. After a konk on the head she can suddenly see and communicate with...tada! Ghosts!. My favorite things about this series to date has been the interactions with Pepper and her ghosts...and the fact that Pepper just has a huge heart. She is very impetuous and doesn't think dangerous things through but she sure does what she does with her own type of flair. I actually wasn't as impressed by the fourth book as I was by the first three and I was more than pleases to see that "Dead Man Talking" had all the great traits as the first three. Plus I could really root for the ghost in this book as well and that was hard to impossible in book four "Night Of the Loving Dead" Here Pepper is faced with a ghost who hasn't been murdered, like most of her previous customers. This man claims he was framed for the murder of his young and pretty co-worker. So that he can rest in peace and so that his wife (who is still alive)can have closure. Complicating (or rather making this story an absolute win!) is a plot that sees Pepper restoring a nearby cemetary in a reality tv show called "Cemetary Survivor". One team is made up of the town's social elite. The other is a group of parolees who have to do the show as part of their parole arrangements. Guess which team Pepper is put in charge of? It is a riot seeing Pepper work with and come to know the group of outcast parolees. I must go ahead and say right here that I hope they show up again in the series from time to time, they were all too great to say goodbye to! The mystery was well done and it isn't immediately known who the murderer is...but the best part of the Pepper series still remains Pepper herself. If you haven't read one of these books before, go ahead and treat yourself! ( )