When outcast October Schwartz moves to Sticksville, she teams up with five dead teenagers to solve the mystery of a teacher's murder

The first in a series, this is the story of a quirky 13 year old who is smart enough to be in high school already. Her fascination with cemeteries leads her to secretly become friends with 5 dead kids from the past who are able to help her solve the mystery of who killed her favorite teacher. Aided also by two live friends from school, she has to circumvent her protective and depressed father who has never recovered from the disappearance of her mother. ( )

Although The Dead Kid Detective Agency does not transcend the genre, it is an enjoyably sardonic adventure with an appealing lead and a surprising trek into a violent chapter in Canadian history. October (wonderful name) is a primo heroine, resourceful, slightly demented, and unafraid of ghosts, murderers, or, worse than both, stuck-up teenage girls (is anything more terrifying than a fifteen-year-old girl with a sense of entitlement?). Her home life is remarkably unvarnished; I can't recall any similar books where a parent is clinically depressed and another has simply run off in the night. It's the realism of these details which help ground the more fantastical elements, and if the plot occasionally careens off the rails, Munday's dry sarcasm and weird asides keep the narrative hopping.

Read the rest of the review here. ( )

This book was silly to the point of absurd, and not in a Tom Robbins or John Irving manner. Thirteen-year-old October is an outcast at school who rather unexpectedly becomes entangled in the death of one of her teachers. For assistance, she turns to a group of undead teenagers from the nearby cemetery. Preposterousness ensues.

As an adult reader, I enjoyed many of the dated pop-culture references and sly asides (they get quite thick in the final chapters), but I really wonder what readers ten to twelve will make of them. The story is original but unnecessarily long, and the narrative voice shifts from first-person to third-person for reasons that are not explained in the text. While this is a creative and unusual book, I see no good reason for a series; but Book 2 is previewed at the back of the volume.

This book suggests an ennui and cynicism about the enterprise of writing and publishing; I cannot say I enjoyed reading it. Disappointing.