DEATH OF A KLEPTOMANIAC

Even when she’s dead, Molly has things to discover and deal with in her own way—with required screaming, sassiness and a little help from a guide named Louise.

Apparently, before a soul can cross over, it needs to settle residual issues, and Molly has them in spades. In addition to her titular kleptomania, she had trouble deciding which guy she really liked and knowing who her real friends were. Somehow this is epitomized by clocks. Lots of them. Do not expect logic, just go with the flow. It’s all pretty silly and lighthearted, which makes the read appealingly fluffy despite Molly’s death from being bitten on the butt by a rattlesnake while horseback riding. (Too embarrassed to admit her butt is sore, she let everyone think that the horse simply threw her and it’s the head injury that matters. Not.) Likable and flawed (Tracy specializes in this kind of narrator), she resists the afterlife as she grapples with the discoveries she makes visiting the people that mattered to her. While setting herself square, Molly can see and hear what she never could alive. No one could take any of it seriously, but perhaps that is its greatest charm.

Theft, death and laughter.