The Hostess with the Ghostess

November 20, 2017
Copperman’s Haunted Guesthouse series graduates from mass market to hardcover with the enjoyable ninth entry (after 2016’s Spouse on Haunted Hill). While renovating an old inn on the Jersey Shore, licensed PI Alison Kerby received a blow on the head that gave her the ability to see and hear ghosts. She has since been advising ghosts with problems. One ghost, recently deceased lawyer Richard Harrison, needs help from his previously deceased brother, Paul, a ghost pal of Alison’s who inhabits the guesthouse but is traveling at the moment. Alison warily agrees to get involved and summon Paul home. Richard, killed during a murder trial, believes that he was close to proving wealthy client Cassidy Van Doren innocent of murdering her stepfather. Subsequent snooping by Alison, Paul, and tech-wiz ghost Maxie Malone shows that Cassidy may not be as guiltless as Richard hoped. The antics of the ghosts are amusing, but, like the walls they so easily pass through, the many permeable rules allow them to interact with the living world a bit too conveniently at times. Agent: Josh Getzler, Hannigan Salky Getzler Agency.

November 15, 2017
The ghost sleuths at the Haunted Guesthouse try their hands at solving several new murders.Alison Kerby's Victorian guesthouse on the Jersey Shore comes complete with two resident ghosts that she, her mother, and her daughter can see, though her second husband can't. Instead of being freaked out, Alison has made a good thing out of her haunted house by hosting regular haunted vacations for seniors. The spirits are those of private eye Paul Harrison and flamboyant interior designer and computer maven Maxie Malone, who continue to hang obligingly around the house putting on a show for the guests now that Alison has helped solve their murders (Spouse on Haunted Hill, 2016). But then Paul decides he wants to see the world and returns only when his older brother, snarky lawyer Richard Harrison, is murdered. The ghostly Richard is more interested in proving his client Cassidy Van Doren innocent of drowning her stepfather, Keith Barent Johnson, than in finding the miscreant who smashed in his own head. Alison, who has a PI license of her own, has been doing legwork for Maxie and Paul, since ghosts can't converse with people who don't know they exist. When Alison starts asking uncomfortable questions of Johnson's family, including his two children from a former marriage, and Cassidy's mother, who evidently enjoyed her position as the wife of a wealthy man, strange events at the guesthouse suggest that a new ghost has arrived. Information has been erased from files Richard compiled, and Cassidy's mother tries to bribe Alison to quit the case. Now that Richard's murder has put Cassidy's trial on hold, the sleuths have time to come up with new evidence to prove someone else did the deed. But it may be a tough sell when even Cassidy's mother insists she's guilty.Persistent fans will find a pretty good mystery lurking under the ghostly shenanigans.

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