THE GRUB-AND-STAKERS HOUSE A HAUNT
by Alisa Craig
More from Craig (a.k.a. Charlotte MacLeod) on the Grub and Stake Gardening and Roving Club. Here, the zany inhabitants of Lobelia Falls, Ontario (The Grub and Stakers Quilt a Bee, 1985, etc.), are being visited by the ghost of mule-skinner Hiram Jellaby, who has taken up residence in the woodshed of widowed health-nut Zilla Trott. Years back, after Hiram accidentally found and reburied a chest full of gold, he was shot to death by an unknown assassin seeking the treasure's location. Now Hiram has returned—to bury his bones properly and to try to find the chest once again. The villagers—funny-talking, gold-plated eccentrics all—busy themselves with the search, mostly with dowsers, unfazed by Hiram's presence, which is often in the form of a pair of piercing, disembodied eyeballs. Their efforts succeed, uncovering in the process the identity of the town prowler and answers to more recent local mysteries. The most voracious appetite for heavy-handed, unrelenting whimsy, bathed in molasses, should be satisfied here.