Ghost Wanted

September 1, 2014
In MWA Grand Master Hart’s delightful fifth Bailey Ruth ghost novel (after 2013’s Ghost Gone Wild), the ghost of lady has been haunting the college library in Adelaide, Okla., for years. Her phantasmagorical mission is to spark romances between library patrons, which is a task she accomplishes by leaving roses for select individuals. But now, someone is copying her, placing roses throughout the library—and also vandalizing gargoyles and stealing books. Departed spirit Bailey Ruth Raeburn, of heaven’s Department of Good Intentions, is convinced that a live human being is behind the crimes. As she investigates, she has a few amusing and alarming run-ins with mortals who don’t know about heaven and the ghost world. She also tries to repair a decades-old heartbreak by brokering a romantic reconciliation between the library ghost and a ghost in heaven. The suspense of that amorous subplot is every bit as gripping as the 21st-century intrigue. Agent: Deborah Schneider, Gelfman Schneider Literary Agency.

September 15, 2014
The heavenly Department of Good Intentions relies on one of its best, but least obedient, sleuths to solve a puzzling case. Bailey Ruth Raeburn is back in her hometown of Adelaide, Oklahoma, at the behest of her supervisor, Wiggins. The often censorious Wiggins has set his disapproval of Bailey Ruth's rule-breaking behavior aside in the hope of restoring the reputation of his former love, who's so far refused to take her place in heaven. Beautiful Lorraine Marlow's ghost still lives in her former home, which had been willed to Goddard College, and gives roses to people she feels should be together. But someone is using her lovely habit to create trouble in the Goddard library, where roses are scattered, a statue is smashed, and a valuable book is stolen. Lorraine's latest candidates for roses are Joe Cooper, editor of the local paper, and Goddard senior Michelle Hoyt, who was recently appointed to write on the life and times of the late Susannah Fairlee, a longtime city council member and activist whose diaries span many years. Michelle, whose library key code was used the night of the theft, stands accused first of robbery, then of murder after a campus security guard is shot during the theft of one of Susannah's diaries. When the acting police chief orders Michelle's arrest, Bailey Ruth and Lorraine help her hide and assist her and Joe in tracking down information that may help to prove her story that she was held hostage the night of the shooting. Although a cold, clever killer will stop at nothing to set up Michelle, Bailey Ruth pulls out all the stops to reunite two pairs of lovers. Hart's amusing and vivacious ghostly sleuth (Ghost Gone Wild, 2013, etc.) puts her invisibility, her gusto and her sharp mind to good use in her latest outing.

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October 1, 2014

Bailey Ruth Raeburn was great at solving mysteries in life, so why should death pose a problem? In her fifth paranormal outing (after Ghost Gone Wild), the spectral gumshoe is ordered by her boss in Heaven's Department of Good Intentions to investigate a case of vandalism in Adelaide, OK, Bailey's old stomping ground. In the library of Goddard College, the ghost of Lorraine Marlow haunts the stacks, playing matchmaker among the students by using the scent of roses. But someone else is also causing trouble, stealing a book and vandalizing a gargoyle. When a security guard is shot, Bailey knows the suspect student cannot be responsible, but who is? VERDICT Obviously not a deep rumination on life after death, this fast-paced and entertaining cozy features a loose-cannon, fashion-conscious heavenly emissary who is protective of her old hometown.

Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

October 1, 2014
Bailey Ruth Raeburn returns to her native Adelaide, Oklahoma, to help those in need of a heavenly emissary, or ghost. In this fifth such visit, she is once again admonished to adhere to the eight precepts of behavior while on Earth but, as always, breaks half of them in her eagerness to help college senior Michelle Hoyt, charged with stealing a rare book from the library. As she begins her investigations, Bailey Ruth teams up with the ghost of Lorraine Marlow, whose portrait hangs over the library stairwell and whose knowledge of the library proves invaluable. Along the way to proving Michelle's innocence, the unlikely pair, working with the young editor of the college newspaper, pulls the cover off other, far more serious crimes. Fans of this series, as well as the ghostly series of Carolyn Haines and Sue Ann Jaffarian, will delight in the ways Bailey Ruth attracts public notice and alarms those she's trying to help as she takes corporeal form (always well dressed, of course) or moves through locked doors.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)