Death and Mr. Right

Saunders follows her magical realism novel Inanimate Objects with this giddy little riff on a Death who isn’t the Reaper everyone knows and fears. Kelly Gold, a short, blue-haired, smart-mouthed, pathetic “agent of nightmares,” has just one job: instilling foreboding in mortals. Then he flubs an assignment—to take a list of condemned souls to Boston—because he falls in love with lissome pink-wigged Lola, a professional thief who steals the list from him. Stuck in a loathsome Boston and stripped of his supernatural powers, Kelly has one ally, his friend Mr. Right, whose eternal job description involves creating intense yearning. As Kelly pursues a slow-simmering quest to recover the lost list and defuse the human temptress Lola, Saunders presents some clever characterizations, but cutesy dialogue and a paucity of plot make this attempted romp fall flat. Agent: Rebecca Mancini, Rights Mix. (Oct.)