"Morgue Drawer Four" ~ Jutta Profijit

"Morgue Drawer Four" was a page-a-day recommendation and it deserves it spot.  This mystery was originally written in German and the translation to English is excellent.  The story starts out with small time car thief Pascha Lerchenberg describing the events leading up to his demise, where he ends up in morgue drawer #4 under the care of pathologist Martin Gansewein.  It turns out Martin is the only one who can hear Pascha and Martin is very reluctantly drawn into helping him investigate his death.  Especially since Pascha had a blood alcohol level of 3.7 when he fell from a construction walkway. 

"Three point seven! Right on! I was extremely impressed with myself.  This pleasure did not persist, however, since my inebriated condition was apparently being used against me here.  My murderer was going to get away with it because the official opinion was that my self-induced state of intoxication was the cause of my tumble from the bridge.  That's just not what happened!  And even worse, my buddies were going to think I was so wasted I died from my own stupidity.  What kind of obituary was that? 'He was so wasted he fell off a bridge!' " 

 Pascha and Martin are a classic odd couple.  Pascha is a street savvy, beer guzzling, act first think later kind of guy.  Martin is a highly educated, tea drinking guy who drives an economical/environmental car that drives Pascha crazy.  In fact, most of Martin's life seems a little left of center to Pascha but Martin's excursions into Pascha's world are equally bewildering to him.  The story is told from Pascha's point of view, with the added bonus that he can hear and sense the emotions coming from Martin.  The character development is good.  You get an immediate sense of who these two guys are.  I also loved how Pascha is forced into some reluctant self-reflection when the afterlife isn't working out quite the way he thought it would.  The story moves along at a nice steady pace and kept me turning the pages.  I enjoyed the descriptive language and the time the author spent establishing the scene.  I'm not sure if that was all the author or partly the translation.  Either way it works for me. I didn't guess the villain, but then I usually don't.  I was excited to learn that the next two books in the series have already been published in German and are currently being translated.