Book excerpt: New York Life Isn't Easy for a Dead GirlIt's hard enough working homicide when your diet consists of human blood, but detective Mildred Heavewater tries not to get hungry at work. Her crime scenes are even messier than usual, considering they all involve inter-species crime. Werewolves, wendigos, and gargoyles all keep life interesting. Add on a ghostly Jewish mother and a lovesick sasquatch co-worker, and Mildred thought she had a full set of problems. That was before the most impossible murder in New York history showed up.Golems are clay people, super-strong and pretty nice. Heck, they're programmed by their creators not to harm humans. That's why the whole city is shocked when a golem is accused of murder. A teenage rabbi turns up with a snapped neck encased in clay, and all signs point to the simpleminded golem school janitor. With the press stampeding in, Mildred has mere days to prove that someone much more dangerous has framed the poor clay schlub from behind the scenes.Time is ticking as inter-species tensions flare throughout New York. If Mildred can't clear the good name of golems everyone, blood and clay will run in the streets. She's got a strict time limit to deal with and still has to grapple with immortal Babylonian warriors, vampire junkies, the selfie-obsessed Jersey Devil, and the terror of Kosher sushi. Something just may kill this dead girl yet.