The Undead Mr. Tenpenny

The Cassie Black Trilogy, Book 1

By: Tammie Painter

Narrated by: Samantha Desz

Work at a funeral home can be mundane. Until you accidentally start bringing the dead back to life.

Cassie Black works at a funeral home. She's used to all manner of dead bodies. What she's not used to is them waking up. Which they seem to be doing on a disturbingly regular basis lately.

Just when Cassie believes she has the problem under control, the recently-deceased Busby Tenpenny insists he's been murdered and claims Cassie might be responsible thanks to a wicked brand of magic she's been exposed to. The only way for Cassie to get her life back to normal is to tame her magic and uncover Mr. Tenpenny's true killer.

Simple right? Of course not. Because while Cassie works on getting her newly-acquired magic sorted, she's blowing up kitchens, angering an entire magical community, and discovering her past is more closely tied to Busby Tenpenny than she could have ever imagined.

If you like comedic contemporary fantasy with snarky humor, unforgettable characters, and paranormal murder mystery such as Ben Aaronovitch's Rivers of London series and Wilkie Martin's Inspector Hobbes, you'll find it hard to pry yourself away from this first book of the Cassie Black Trilogy.

©2021 Tammie Painter (P)2025 Tantor Media

Fun world, frustrating character

The world and magic of this book are fun. Some of it feels very original, other aspects are definitely mimicry. The narrator does an incredible job. The first time Allistair spoke I actually thought there was a male narrator doing certain parts.

The frustrating aspect of this book all revolved around the main character’s patchy (or nonexistent) logic. Moreover the logic was accepted by other characters. MC kept outlining logical fallacies that felt like something a 16 year old came up with. “If I give up my magic, then all these things will happen and it will be fine”. About 6 hours into the book she finally has the thought that maybe she didn’t consider everything or made assumptions, and a≠b+c. Whereas I was asking those questions from square one. It was one logical fallacy after another, combined with the MC having tantrums. This factor led to it feeling as if the storyverse was taking significant liberties just to push through the designated plot. Leading to a bit of a muddled ending.

One last complaint - as an introvert myself, I got really annoyed with the author’s misuse of the word. Introvert doesn’t equal social recluse or social maladaptive, it’s about recharging energy. MC’s statements about being an introvert should have been naming her childhood trauma, delayed emotional development, and attachment issues. Not pithy, but accurate.

Despite aaaaaall my criticism, I did enjoy this book. I kept getting annoyed but it wasn’t enough to put me off. Moving on to the sequel now.

Clever premise Very poorly executed

We are given really really weak conflict. And then our main character beats the issue to death, grinds it up and sends it to the dog food factory.