RANSOM UNPAID
by Fred Hunter
Ransom Unpaid ($22.95; Nov.; 224 pp.; 0-312-24233-6) Abigail Pearson still misses her long-missing husband Phillip, but not so much that she welcomes his return in spectral form. Now it’s up to her minder, Emily Charters, and Emily’s friend Jeremy Ransom, the Chicago PD’s most genteel detective (Ransom for a Killing, 1998, etc.), to figure out whether the apparition that frightened Abigail into a heart attack was a vision, a fraud, or a warmup for an even more nefarious plot.