Death and Other Occupational Hazards

Author Veronika Dapunt
Narrator Chiara Goldsmith
Publisher Transworld
Publish Date 10 April 2025
Run Time 9 hours and 14 minutes
Format Audio
Genre Comic (humorous) fantasy, Contemporary fantasy, Crime and mystery: private investigator / amateur detectives, Crime and mystery: women sleuths.

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What to expect

Brought to you by Penguin.

People have a few ideas about Death, and the worst by far is a skeleton in a black potato sack. If she’s lucky, she gets a scythe. The truth: she’s just a woman doing a job and she’s very good at it.

Until she takes time off to live as a human and everything falls apart. Someone's killing people not on her schedule (well, not yet anyway) and with no thanks to the Temp she left in charge, it’s up to her to make things right.

With the help of her oh-so-sanctimonious sister, Life, and a charming (sexy) parasitologist, Death must stop the killer before it’s too late. But that’s if she can defeat her greatest challenge yet: human bureaucracy.

Who better to investigate a murder than Death herself?

© Veronika Dapunt 2025 (P) Penguin Audio 2025

Critics Review

An entertaining page-turner with plenty of metaphysical fun and games as well as earthly intrigue.

The Guardian

Every now and then, a book arrives completely from leftfield that manages to turn the murder/mystery genre on its head. Death and Other Occupational Hazards is a very clever and hugely funny example of such disruption . . . Wickedly irreverent and clever.

Irish Independent

Funny and smart with something new to think about and laugh at on every page. A top-class, deep-dish murder mystery and one of my favourite books of any year.

IAN MOORE, comedian and author of Death and Croissants

A murder mystery full of wit, originality and astute observations on humanity. Get ready to fall in love with this likeable and flawed version of the not-so-grim reaperu2019

CultureFly

A wildly entertaining blend of mystery, humour, and heart. Death as weu2019ve never known her u2014 witty, sharp, and unexpectedly relatable. A must-read.

OVA CEREN, author of The Book of Heartbreak

This original story gripped me from the start and kept me hooked to the end . . . Different and compelling.

Daily Mail

Gloriously absurdist, darkly comic, and utterly readable u2013 twisty fantasy meets Jane Austen with a scythe - love it

HELEN LEDERER, comedian and founder of the Comedy Women in Print Prize

Veronika Dapunt masterfully blends dark humour with a compelling mystery, offering a fresh and often hilarious perspective on life and death.

JOANNA WALLACE, author of Youu2019d Look Better as a Ghost

Life, death, love and murder collide in the most delicious way. This wonderfully observed and brilliantly imagined book put me through all the emotions. I never knew what was coming next, but at every point, it made me fall more in love with life.

LUAN GOLDIE, author of the Womenu2019s Prize long-listed Nightingale Point

I found myself wanting to rush back to the book whenever I could u2013 genuine wit and warmth run all the way through the narrativeu2026 Inventive, fresh, cheering, genuinely moving and truly funny.

SILVIA SAUNDERS

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