DEAD TO THE WORLD

A romantic 20th-anniversary weekend turns into a dangerous ghost hunt.

E.J. Pugh, a romance writer with a propensity for sleuthing (Gone in a Flash, 2013, etc.), has booked a weekend at a B&B in Peaceful, Texas, along with her long-suffering husband, Willis. Miss Hutchins, owner of The Bishop’s Inn, thinks she’s being haunted by the ghost of her father, who murdered her mother in 1947. E.J. doesn’t believe in ghosts, but the food is great and the town charming, so they stay on until they’re joined by ghost hunters Humphrey Hammerschultz and Diamond Lovesey. Awakened at night by a strange sound in the hall, E.J and Willis find Humphrey dead on the couch. The local police chief and his assistant aren’t inclined to invite E.J. into the investigation, but the couple is stuck in town until the killer is found. Back at home, their three same-age teen daughters—Megan; Bess, who’s adopted; and Alicia, a foster child—have a mystery of their own to solve. Bess has a crush on Logan Harris, who works at a local steakhouse. When the girls go there for dinner, they see Logan being attacked by the brother of high school acquaintance Harper Benton, who’s told him that Logan is the one who got her pregnant. When Logan denies it, the girls put aside their constant squabbling and resolve to prove him innocent. In Peaceful, where Diamond is the next murder victim, E.J. wonders if the answer to all their present problems may lie in the past.

A mystery told on several levels, each of them both tricky and amusing until the diverse sleuths prevail.