MERRY, MERRY GHOST

After all the trouble a redheaded ghost ran into on her first mission for Heaven’s Department of Good Intentions (Ghost at Work, 2008), can she do better the second time around?

Bailey Ruth Raeburn—that is, her spirit—is sent to her hometown of Adelaide, Okla., to protect young Keith Flynn. Left on his wealthy grandmother Susan Flynn’s doorstep, he’s become a magnet for trouble. His father Mitch vanished after accidentally killing his sister in a car accident. Mitch entered the military and was killed in action before his family had any idea he had married or had a child. Now Susan’s plans to change her will have upset the original beneficiaries. When she dies before she can sign the new will, Bailey Ruth ignores the rules, moves her body to suggest murder and sees that Susan writes a holograph will and has it witnessed before passing over. Once it’s clear that digitalis in her cocoa, not her illness, did Susan in, the police look among some of the town’s leading citizens for the culprit. When the new will doesn’t turn up and the secretary of Susan’s lawyer becomes the next victim, the invisible Bailey Ruth takes to writing clues on the police chief’s chalkboard and even materializes against the orders of her long-suffering boss in an effort to solve the crime.

Irrepressible Bailey Ruth’s sophomore entry is a lighthearted tale, with the murders upstaged by the joys of the Christmas season.