The premise of this series is clever: a young widow moves back to her hometown in order to run a book store with her aunt. The ghost of a man killed in the store many years earlier haunts it and the heroine can "hear" and "talk" to him in her head. Of course, there are murders in the town and the ghost helps the heroine solve the murders before the cloddish police chief can. The ghost can also take the heroine on trips back to his era (late 40s) to help solve his unsolved cases (he was a PI). This usually happens when she is knocked unconscious, which seems to happen quite often. The problem is that the heroine never learns. She's naive, stubborn, goes off into the proverbial dark woods by herself, etc., etc. It becomes tiresome and I skipped to the last few pages to find out "who dunnit" because I was so bored. Won't read any more in the series which is a shame because Cleo Coyle normally writes great stories.
This is a good series. Good mysteries in this one too- one from the present and one from the past, both interesting and well thought out. I wasn't particularly thrilled about Pen and Jack trying to do romance through dreams, but thankfully there was not an overdose of it. Very fast paced and keeps you on your toes. The ending is jam packed and there is one line that Pen says that I just loved! Already have the next one in the series!
The best of the Haunted Bookshop series that I've read so far! Interesting background on detective films from the 1940's. Mrs McClure spends a lot more dream time with her resident ghost in this story which allows more romance to enter their relationship as well as more time spent in the 1940's when Jack was alive and working as a PI.
Deborah H. (littlepine) - 
