Dying For A Living by Kory M Shrum

This is my second read of this book (I purchased some further books in the series and thought it made sense to start at the beginning again). I didn't enjoy it quite as much the second time around but I was surprised how much of the storyline I had forgotten - the major plot points were still there but a lot of the nuance had been lost.

The plot is a good, and rather unique one, Jesse is a Death Replacement Agent - going to die by accident then an AMP will confirm a 24 hour window of it happening and you book your Death Replacement Agent (they die so you don't have to).  The problem is someone is out to kill the agents and Jesse seems to be next in line.  Who is responsible for the attacks - the FBDR? The Church? or is it something or someone even darker? This creates a good plot that is part thriller and part supernatural and it does do a good job of straddling both genres.

The characterisation is reasonable but you do find yourself struggling to get to grips with anyone other than Jesse - even she is a bit of a mystery.  In some instances, Brinkley, this is because even Jesse doesn't really know what is real and what is front so we suffer from her skewed perspective.  However, Ally and Lane are a problem as Jesse knows both intimately but I didn't get any real sense of them as people off the page.  The set up to the big set piece at the end of the book is well handled with the tension palpably building with the fallout seguing neatly in to book two.