I've been working on Expiration Date for almost three weeks now. This is not a quick read. The book is kind of a mixed bag for me. Interesting plot and characters, but draggy in some parts and confusing in others. Also, just a bit too much of the
whip out a new paranormal item
brand of fantasy.
The plot is basically this: Los Angeles is full of ghosts. Some people are in tune with ghosts for various reasons. Some are ghost junkies, inhaling the essences of dead people (I never quite understood why). Some are ghost hungers. Other have a connection to a ghost because of unresolved guilt. And then there are the ghosts themselves. Everything starts in the book when the ghost of Thomas Edison is freed from a vial and attaches itself to the person of Koot Hoomie Parganas, a 12 year old boy who is being groomed by his parents to be a sort of messiah for an Indian sect. Edison is such a powerful ghost that the entire ghost world of Los Angeles is abuzz. Hunters start chasing him. Other ghosts awaken. Loretta deLarava is chasing after many of the most powerful, and she wants to use Pete Sullivan as a ghost magnet. He used to work for her, but once he figured out her scheme had disappeared from her grasp for a number of years. So basically all the bad guys are chasing after Edison or some of the other powerful ghosts who are running around as a result of Edison's release. Sullivan, Edison, Parganas and several other characters are trying to prevent themselves from being used and inhaled. Everything culminates in a battle on the decks of the Queen Mary permanently docked in the Los Angeles harbor.
Yeah… don't have much more to say about it. There are probably 20 characters in the book and it's hard to keep them all straight. Worth reading, but don't go out of your way to pick it up.