Flirting With Death — Patricia Grasso

Zara Romano sees dead people. New England's best mortician, Zara and two of her older brothers own Romano Funeral Home in Salem, Massachusetts. Zara is a mingling of two nationalities, Irish and Italian. She's Irish on the outside, complete with red hair, blue eyes and freckles, but she's Italian on the inside, with a temper to match.

The youngest sibling of seven and the only female, Zara loves her brothers but thinks they're too bossy. Two of her brothers serve on the Salem Police Force, one is police chief and the other a detective. Zara's two widowed nanas live next door. She can always rely on a home-cooked meal, unless her nanas are trolling funerals for new boyfriends.

Another bossy man in her life is Zara's ex-boyfriend, Marcello Ponti. A sinfully gorgeous police detective, Marcello makes a habit of appearing on her doorstep unannounced even though they broke up two years earlier when he wanted to “date” other women. Zara refuses to be a member of the Marcello Dating Club. Good thing she has her beloved dog Smooches to keep her company. Thankfully, Smooches is with her the night she finds the mayor hanging from a tree at a local park. Definitely a homicide, the mayor's blood was drained via two puncture wounds on his neck. When she discovers two more bodies in the same condition, Zara's own investigative instincts kick in, and she searches for the link between the three victims.

Does Salem have a vampire in its midst or a serial killer with a fetish for fang marks? More importantly is Zara marked as the murderer's next victim or is she merely flirting with death?