Undead and Unreturnable
MaryJanice Davidson
Berkley, Nov 2005, $21.95
ISBN: 0425208168

In Minneapolis when Elizabeth Anne Taylor died on her thirtieth birthday, her mother bought the gravestone. However, instead of resting for eternity in her plot, Betsy got up that night as the queen of the undead. The funeral was cancelled, but her mom, thinking you never waste a good pair of shoes, decides to place the tombstone on the grave site anyway. Thus, Betsy visits her grave site; a touching moment, though Betsy worries she might ruin a pair of expensive shoes.

However she has no time for grieving, because Betsy must prepare for her wedding with her soul mate (do vampires have souls?) Eric Sinclair after totally rejecting his royal snobbiest (through three previous "Undead" tales). However, irate female ghosts who fit Betsy's profile of tall and blond, demand she track down the serial killer who murdered them. Betsy assumes this is easy to accomplish, as how can the culprit kill someone who is already dead, so maybe now she can go shopping without the haunting of her dead peers.

No one does humorous romantic fantasy better than the incomparable MaryJanice Davidson. Her latest Betsy's "Undead" thriller starts off with a graveyard scene and turns eerier by the moment, yet always retains wit and amusement. Betsy is in rare form as she plays an amateur sleuth encouraged by ghostly "clones" who nudge her worse than her mom ever did. Eric is his royal coolness, except when he deals with Betsy getting into one fiasco after another, when all he wants is to share Christmas blood with his beloved. The support cast is as nutty as ever, as UNDEAD AND UNRETURNABLE is another wacky fun fantasy with a touch of mystery and a pinch of horror mixed in the red looking eggnog.

Harriet Klausner