This is from the Berkley Prime Crime group of mystery books. They have crime mysteries in all flavours - coffee shop, bookshop, knitting, flower shop, cooking, tea shop and many others. They're the mystery book equivalent of a pair of fluffy bunny slippers and a nice glass of merlot - they won't change your life, but they'll give you a lovely comfy evening in.
This book is "A Haunted Bookshop Mystery" and the title reads like a play on the 1947 movie "The Ghost and Mrs. Muir". It has a few other similarities - a ghost, a widow, a child, books and a seaside town. But don't mistake this book for a treatise on, well, anything. It's a female-oriented murder mystery, without the gore or the tension or anything mildly disturbing. It's Nancy Drew for adults.
Whilst I really enjoyed the book I wasn't keen on the two main characters, Mrs. McClure and the ghostly P.I. Jack Shepard. I found him overly crass one minute and a knight in shining armour the next. Whereas Mrs. McClure's self-deprecating doormat behaviour tended to rule her for chapters, then she'd suddenly go into 'I am woman hear me roar' mode and just as suddenly slip out again - it was almost like there were two author's writing the book and they just weren't in sync. They never moved smoothly from one action to the next. Fortunately the quirky town characters and the actual plot make up for any lack in their dynamic. Also, and this is a bit odd, but I really got the feeling that a man wrote this book. There were just aspects to Mrs. McClure that no woman would write. It's like he'd gotten his workings-of-the-female-mind ideas from commercials and life-time television. Sorry buddy, we don't function that way - ask your wife!
Anyways, I have a pair of comfy pyjama's, a nice cup of tea and book 2 in the series waiting for me.
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