Review: PLAY DEAD, Anne Frasier

• 
  this edition read on my Kindle (Amazon)
  
• ASIN ‏ : ‎ B00DELN6A8
• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Thomas & Mercer (February 25, 2014)
• Print length ‏ : ‎ 370 pages
• Page numbers source ISBN ‏ : ‎ 1477849009 

Synopsis (Amazon)

No one is more familiar with Savannah's dark side than homicide detective and native resident Elise Sandburg. She's been haunted for years by her own mysterious past: she was abandoned as a baby in one of the city's ancient cemeteries, and it's rumored that she is the illegitimate daughter of an infamous Savannah root doctor. The local Gullah culture of voodoo and magic is one that few outsiders can understand, least of all Elise's new partner. Now someone is terrorizing the city, creating real-life zombies by poisoning victims into a conscious paralysis that mimics death. As the chilling case unfolds, Elise is drawn back into the haunted past she's tried so hard to leave behind.

[Publisher's Weekly] Frasier has perfected the art of making a reader's skin crawl, which is evident from this book's very first scene, in which a medical examiner discovers in the midst of an autopsy that the cadaver he's working on is really a live person. Set in Savannah, Ga., this exceptional thriller follows the hunt for the deranged person who's drugging people so that their minds remain wide awake even as their bodies resemble death. The creepiness factor increases when Frasier introduces homicide detective Elise Sandburg, who was abandoned in a cemetery as a baby and who knows Gullah spells and culture. Elise's partner, anti-social David Gould, is equally strange; his past holds secrets so dark he should be under psychiatric care. Formerly with the FBI, Gould currently lives in a rundown, foul-smelling apartment and sleeps with a prostitute who works for a voodoo priestess. As the two detectives follow leads to the priestess and the former college professor who researched the drug, they forge a tentative bond and come to terms with their own troubled pasts. 

My Take

This novel is billed as the beginning of a Gothic/zombie/paranormal series featuring homicide detective Elise Sandburg working in Savannah. However it is a series that I won't be following. This book was just not my cup of tea and we nearly parted company early on when the author was trying to "educate" me about zombieism and voodooism. There were police procedural aspects which I thought were the book's salvation but in general I struggled, although I got to the end.

I must acknowledge though that my feelings are not echoed by other exuberant reviewers on Amazon.

My rating: 3.2

About the author

 Anne Frasier is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author. Her award-winning books span the genres of suspense, mystery, thriller, romantic suspense, paranormal, and memoir. She won a RITA for romantic suspense, and the Daphne du Maurier Award for paranormal romance. Her thrillers have hit the USA Today list and have been featured in Mystery Guild, Literary Guild, and Book of the Month Club. Her memoir, The Orchard, was an O, The Oprah Magazine Fall Pick; a One Book, One Community read; a B+ review in Entertainment Weekly; and a Librarians’ Best Books of 2011. She divides her time between the city of Saint Paul, Minnesota, and her writing studio in rural Wisconsin.