Sunday, February 08, 2009

book review: "The Ghost and the Femme Fatale" by Alice Kimberly

THE GHOST AND THE FEMME FATALE
Alice Kimberly

Book 4 of the Haunted Bookshop Mysteries. Read on the recommendation of Michelle (will lend it to you next time we meet). First read of 2009(!).

Widow Pen McClure's bookshop is haunted by the ghost of Private Investigator Jack Shepard, who was murdered there more than half a century ago. Together they investigate and solve crimes in a small town in Rhode Island, as in this installment when guests of the town's Film Noir Festival get killed off one by one.

This was an easy read, like reading a young adult or a romance novel, but I found it just okay. I probably would have appreciated it more had I started from Book 1 (sadly, books in the series are unavailable at BookMooch and difficult to chance upon at BookSale). I like the chemistry between main characters Pen and Jack, and the dream travel back to Jack's world of 1940's Manhattan. However, the mystery is just your average run-of-the-mill mystery in which the clue that ties all clues together is revealed only at the end so the reader can't really guess whodunit (unless she's paranoid and suspects everyone).

I wouldn't mind reading more from this series, but I'm not exactly scrambling to get my hands on them ASAP.


Rating:
 

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