Review of The Ghost and the Bogus Bestseller

From the publisher

A big bestseller leads to small town trouble.

Bookshop owner Penelope Thornton-McClure didn’t believe in ghosts, until she was haunted by the hard-boiled spirit of 1940s private investigator Jack Shepard. Now Jack is back on the job, and Pen is eternally grateful…

After an elegant new customer has a breakdown in her shop, Penelope suspects there is something bogus behind the biggest bestseller of the year. This popular potboiler is so hot that folks in her tiny Rhode Island town are dying to read it–literally. First one customer turns up dead, followed by another mysterious fatality connected to the book, which Pen discovers is more than just fiction. Now, with the help of her gumshoe ghost, Pen must solve the real-life cold case behind the bogus bestseller before the killer closes the book on her.

My review of The Ghost and the Bogus Bestseller

Who would have thought a dead gumshoe could be so much fun? Right from the beginning, the presence of a stereotypical 1930s private detective thrown into a modern world comes through loud and clear. This mystery is all about keeping things light. The dialogue between the protagonists comes through as a relationship between two people with a genuine attraction to each other.

The story moves along briskly, thanks to the banter between the two main characters. There are enough twists and turns to keep the reader guessing about the whodunnit part of the mystery. This isn’t a story filled with deep character development or intense descriptions, but one that relies on an overabundance of cliches straight out of an old movie. The formula works, helping to give readers of The Ghost and the Bogus Bestseller a mystery to solve along with that mysterious fun factor.

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