Getting a Head.  Yup, that’s what I just read.  And it’s exactly the pun you think it is. 

Despite the bad pun title, the book wasn’t half bad; despite having a very unlikable lead character – who can see and talk with ghosts and has a vampire roommate. 

While the ghost part was a big part of the plot – it really wasn’t very helpful for moving the plot along (!) and the roommate being a vampire didn’t enter into it at all (!!). 

Very anti-Chekov.  Two big guns left on the table that were actually left on the table.

The main character (Kat Parker) is just a huge ditz.  She is incapable of thinking before speaking or thinking before acting or, basically, thinking.  I find that really annoying.  Not only does it put her into precarious situations, it also puts others into precarious situations. 

There are a lot of other characters, some major, some not so much, but they are mostly likable.  (There is an ex-(but not all that ex) criminal who is very annoying as well; who is his own shit storm of trouble and full of lame excuses.  Annoying.)

Okay.  I like the turtle. 

So why don’t I hate this book?  Because I really, really should.

I don’t hate the book because the plot is clever; with conflicts piling on conflicts piling on more and more questions.  And the author actually ties it all up in the end; and I like books with a whole mess of tangled plot strings that get sorted and neatly tied up in the end.

This is the third book in the series, so I am jumping in midstream; and clearly, somebody is reading this because it’s the third book in the series. And the hints to previous adventures was intriguing enough for me to consider buying one (or both) of the first books in the series.

This book is brain candy.  It has no nutritive value whatsoever.  It would probably be a fun read for an older teenager – no sex and fairly tame language; most of the violence is done to the testicles of various miscreants.  Now I’m going to read a Balducci novel to get the taste of this one out of my brain.