Playing Dead
Seeing dead people…

Still chilly? Feel like a little frisson from the afterlife? This is Playing Dead. Irish dude. Ghostly heroine. One week to solve her murder before he dies. Nothing like a little motivation to get a man moving, right?

http://mochamemoirspress.com/playing-dead/

This is the blurb:

Gearoid (pronounced Garod) McCardle is a former crime journalist who is dying from a brain tumour. He has decided to return to his home in Balham to die in peace and quiet. Unfortunately, no peace and quiet comes because he’s haunted by Dr Aoife (pronounced Eefa) Boyake, who was brutally murdered in his home forty years ago.She shows him her death in a variety of ways to convince him to help her find her murderer. Short of telling her that he doesn’t have enough time to help her, Gearoid concedes and begins to investigate the details of her death.The closer he gets to finding her murder, the more he finds that he doesn’t want Aoife to leave for the afterlife nowing that there’s a chance they’ll never see one another again. Gearoid’s persuasive, impatient, compassionate and passionate. Aoife is pragmatic, smart, sweet, professional with Gearoid’s condition and sexy as hell. Between the countdown to the anniversary of Aoife’s death and the ticking time bomb of Gearoid’s tumour, they see hope in the other, despite the futility of love between the living and the dead.

And this is the excerpt:

The doorbell rang for his pizza and he made his way downstairs to collect it. He thanked the driver for his food and climbed the stairs back to his bedroom. Odd. Why’s the door closed? He’d left it open and the light on. Christ. Not tonight. Gearoid took a slow breath and opened the door. The net curtains fluttered in the darkness of the room. He flicked on the light and the shadow disappeared. Sitting down, he turned on the TV and opened the pizza box.
“That looks nice.”
Gearoid paused and glanced to his right. A woman was practically hovering over him, bringing with her a draft of cold.
“Can you leave please?” he asked.
“Whoa, whoa. Wait. You can see me?”
“Yes.”
“Really? See me?” she repeated, waving her fingers before his face. Gearoid leaned away from the waft of cold air.
“Yes! Now, please see your way out?”
She tried to pout full, plum-tinted glossy lips and failed miserably with the smile that was hovering on her mouth. “We’re having dinner, why am I going to leave? Especially when you can actually see me!”
Gearoid fought to ignore her; he’d done it before with ones just like her and they’d left him alone for years. All of them. He turned the volume up on the TV, but she edged closer to him.
“You can’t eat all that yourself.”
Fine, he thought. There’s always the other way. “You’re dead. I can’t help you. Go away.”
“All the Irish people I’ve ever met have been so nice to me and my family. There had to be an exception.” She lay down on the bed and crossed her legs at the ankle. He could fully admit that she was the prettiest to ever approach him, with her smooth, coffee-coloured skin contrasting beautifully with the crushed velvet, emerald green playsuit she wore. Her attitude was all Pam Grier but her hair was Vonetta McGee’s softness in big brushed bouncing waves. Gearoid lost his appetite. He’d been so practised at not being able to see these things, he had no inclination for it to start all over again. So he stared at her. Pointedly. She didn’t move. She only stared back, blinking large dark eyes the colour of iced tea.
“What?” she asked, that smile of hers a whisper from appearing. “It’s because I look normal, isn’t it?”
“No, it’s because I want you to go away.” No one’s that pretty, he thought irritably.
“Maybe you should just eat,” she said, reaching up and touching his temple. The coolness in her touch was a blessing. Even with the morphine he could feel the pressure on his skull, but after the tips of her fingers grazed his skin, the force on his head lessened. “I’ll come back after. Men are always in better moods after they eat.” She grinned at him, nudging the box to him with her thigh.
He glanced back to her but she was gone. There was only the barest indent in his duvet. Oh come on! This wasn’t happening again. He needed his last days to be in peace, not hounded by the very same people he would be one of shortly.