The Dirt on Ninth Grave

A numbered series by Darynda Jones, which I will now need to go back and read, starting with First Grave on the Right. The series is based on the character, Charley Davidson, who is a part-time sleuth who can see dead people and parallel worlds. However,  you would not know about Charley if you started with this book because Charley woke up in an alley behind a diner several weeks ago with no memory of who she is and now goes by the name Jane Doerr. She is waiting tables part-time in the diner and her fellow waitress is Cookie, who keeps calling her Charley for some inexplicable reason. Also there are a bunch of diner "regulars" who seem to have taken a special interest in her, including the hot body Reyes Farrow, who is the target of all the local female lust in the town of Sleepy Hollow (yes, THAT Sleepy Hollow). Because "Janey" can see other worlds, she knows that Reyes is not altogether human--she sees an aura of flames and smoke around him, Also, she can see a demon sleeping curled inside one of her favorite customers, Mr. P., who is usually accompanied by the ghost of a dead stripper. Mr. P.  doesn't know about all the company he keeps of course, so Janey is worried about him. Then she has more things to worry about when she begins to suspect that the owner of the antique store next door, Mr. Vandenberg, and his family have been taken hostage by terrorists. But how to get help for them without endangering them further? And then there is the local police officer, Ian, who thinks Janey is his girlfriend, even though she has not encouraged him. As the book goes on, it emerges he is stalking her in a major and scary way. So Janey has friends and enemies--living and dead--and she is afraid to tell anyone what she can see that nobody else can. This was a real romp, and although I don't have much patience for the bodice ripper style of description that pops up periodically, Janey is an enjoyable character, and I found myself as anxious as she was to find out who--and what--she really is.