Ghost in Trouble (Bailey Ruth Raeburn Series #3)

by Carolyn G. Hart

Overview

When Bailey Ruth Raeburn passed over into the great beyond, she was delighted to discover her sleuthing days would last an eternity—joining Heaven's Department of Good Intentions to help those in need and ensure the wicked get their just deserts.

On her latest mission, Bailey Ruth's finding it difficult to adhere to boss Wiggins's rules for good spirit deportment. The endangered woman she's supposed to save happens to be one of Bailey Ruth's oldest enemies—and she's determined to thwart the ghostly sleuth's good intentions at every turn. There's only so much any person, living or dead, can put up with! But to solve her toughest case yet, Bailey Ruth will have to manage her recalcitrant charge somehow—while dealing with a fraudulent medium, a mother's heartbreak . . . and a telltale rawhide dog bone. Heaven help her!

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780061915024
Publisher:	HarperCollins Publishers
Publication date:	10/25/2011
Series:	Bailey Ruth Raeburn Series , #3
Pages:	304
Product dimensions:	4.26(w) x 6.76(h) x 0.86(d)

About the Author

An accomplished master of mystery, Carolyn Hart is the author of twenty previous Death on Demand novels. Her books have won multiple Agatha, Anthony, and Macavity Awards. She is also the creator of the Henrie O series, featuring a retired reporter, and the Bailey Ruth series, starring an impetuous, redheaded ghost. One of the founders of Sisters in Crime, Hart lives in Oklahoma City.

Editorial Reviews

In Agatha-winner Hart's charming third mystery featuring ghostly emissary Bailey Ruth Raeburn of heaven's "Department of Good Intentions" (after 2009's Merry, Merry Ghost), Bailey returns to earth to protect Kay Clark, a former Adelaide, Okla., acquaintance, from danger. After the fatal fall of Kay's old boyfriend, Jack Hume, at the Hume estate, the Castle, Kay pays her respects to his family at the Castle, where an enormous vase nearly flattens her. In delightful Topperesque fashion, Bailey appears to Kay in an ever-changing array of fashions as Kay's "assistant," Francie de Sales, and together they investigate Kay's brush with the vase. When they discover Jack may have been murdered, suspects range from Hume family members to two of Jack's former lovers. Often disregarding the "precepts for earthly visitation" (avoiding public notice, not consorting with other departed spirits, etc.), Bailey with her sunny Pollyanna attitude makes an irresistible cozy sleuth. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly

The latest case for one of Heaven's cleverest sleuths forces her to break a lot of rules.

Wiggins, her boss in Heaven's Department of Good Intentions, knows that Bailey Ruth Raeburn (Merry, Merry Ghost, 2009, etc.) means well. Even though she's often in trouble, he sends her back to her hometown of Adelaide, Okla., to protect Kay Clark, who's visiting The Castle, the magnificent home of the wealthy but troubled Hume family. Bailey Ruth arrives just in time to shove Kay out of the way of a huge pot that's apparently been pushed from a balcony. Ostensibly there to write a book on Jack Hume, the love of her life, Kay is really investigating his fatal fall down a staircase, which she suspects is murder. At first Kay believes Bailey Ruth is a figment of her imagination, but once convinced she exists, she grudgingly lets the new arrival pose as her assistant. This gig gives the fashion-obsessed ghost a chance to change from one outfit to another while investigating a long list of suspects that includes Jack's sister Evelyn; his sister-in-law Diane; clairvoyant Laverne Phillips and her husband; Diane's son Jimmy; Shannon Taylor, daughter of Margo, the Hume housekeeper; gallery owner Alison Gregory; and neighbors Gwen and Clint Dunham. At length Bailey Ruth realizes that Jack found something wrong when he returned home after years away. Now it's up to her to unearth the motive for his murder.

Delightful Bailey Ruth solves the tough case with panache.

Kirkus Reviews