REVIEW: Death and Other Occupational Hazards by Veronika Dapunt

Her job is to die for. Literally. Most people think that when they meet Death, it’ll be a skeleton in a black potato sack. Maybe with a scythe. Truth is, she’s just a woman doing a job, and she’s very good at it.

But when Death takes a much-needed break to live on earth, things start to go terribly wrong. Someone’s killing people not on her list (well, not yet anyway) and it's down to her to find the culprit before it’s too late.

To make matters worse, her sanctimonious sister, Life – whom Death hasn’t got on with in millennia – won’t stop blaming her . . . And then there’s the slight problem of the charming (sexy) parasitologist she’s suspicious of. But she’ll be fine, right? Who better to solve a murder than Death herself?

"Have you ever felt like, despite your best efforts to be considerate and helpful, no one appreciates you? Well assume you've felt like that for three and a half billion years."

Review:

Afterlife bureaucracy as you’ve never read it before. A dazzling cocktail of murder, mystery and death with a little dash of romance - this is a brilliantly unique story with so much heart.

Introducing Death (and her sister Life) who just wanted a some time off work, not for people to start dying. Dapunt creatively and delicately plays with our ideas of the Grim Reaper, the afterlife and the beautiful fragility of life to create something new and unusual that I absolutely adored.

"In her eyes, I see life in all it's complexity: kind and cruel. Peaceful and violent. Hateful and loving. Happiness and Sadness. But above all I see her love for creation and every single element of it."

Somehow managing to read like a fun summer novel but packing in the intensity of a murder mystery and a whole boatload of dark humour, this was far too easy to read in one sitting. Our darling Death is a fabulous narrator, making a dreary office, a battle between celestial or a mafia boss seem the same kind of fun and irreverent action that kept me hooked. My one and only bugbear was the constant repetition of the name of a specific criminal organisation, italicised and just said so much in certain sections where it didn’t need to be that the formatting kept pulling my eyes to it and breaking what was otherwise an expertly written pace.

Reading this was some of the most fun I’ve had during an existential crisis in quite some time. A beautiful story about human nature wrapped up in a cataclysmic mystery and a razor sharp wit.

⭐⭐⭐⭐

DAOOH will be released on April 10th with Random House UK/Bantam. I received a reviewers copy of this title.
Content includes implied suicide, murder and animal violence.

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