by Sandra Murphy
& Carolyn Hart

This week we have a review of another perfect book for your Halloween season, Ghost Times Two by Carolyn Hart. We also have a fun guest post from Carolyn. Details at the end of this post on how to enter to win a copy of Ghost Times Two and we also have a link to order it from Amazon, and from an indie bookstore where a portion goes to help support KRL.

Ghost Times Two: Bailey Ruth Ghost Novel By Carolyn Hart
Review by Sandra Murphy

Wiggins is the Heavenly dispatcher of emissaries sent back to Earth to help those with problems. He turns to Bailey Ruth for some of the tougher cases and almost immediately, starts to worry. Bailey Ruth has a looser interpretation of the precepts (rules) to follow than Wiggins would like to see.

As an emissary, or ghost as Bailey Ruth calls herself, she mostly works alone, sometimes soliciting the help of a person or two, as long as she can make them believe they thought of the idea themselves. Other times, well, she just has to make an appearance.

This time she’s sent to help another ghost, that of Jimmy, formerly a newspaper reporter. He died in an accident, and although he sees the golden stairs that would take him to Heaven, he doesn’t want to leave his true love, Megan. Of course, Megan, not being used to ghosts, thinks she’s losing her mind when she hears his voice or finds Dove candy bars on her desk.

Unlike Jimmy, Megan is ready to move on. She’s met Blaine. They have a lot in common, both being lawyers. When Blaine asks her to be his law partner in his new firm, she’s excited about the prospect. While she likes most of the people in her current firm, there are problems. Doug, one of the partners, tries to run the whole firm, in spite of being the junior partner.

Megan gives her notice to Doug, but he says if she quits, there’s no reason to keep her secretary, Anita, around. Anita’s daughter is very ill, and she relies on the insurance to cover the bills. Backed into such a corner, Megan says she’ll stay.

Doug’s a womanizer, a sleaze, and bully. In spite of that, he’s dating a rich woman who stands to inherit millions. He’s got the perfect ring for her, too, a diamond that cost $100,000. Everyone in the office has seen it.

Megan gets a text message from Doug, asking her to come to his house to discuss the termination. Megan rushes to his house, only to find him dead in the den. Before she can dial 911, the police arrive. It’s more than suspicious that Megan is found with the body.

There are other suspects—Anita, for one, because she overheard the threat Doug made to Megan. There’s Doug’s ex-wife, his law partner, a furious client, his girlfriend, and more. Still, Megan was on the scene with blood on her hands and blouse. The question is, who called 911?

Bailey Ruth has her hands full, what with training Jimmy how to behave in his new ghostly form, keeping Megan safe, and finding out who did the murder.

This is the fourth book in the series. Bailey Ruth is someone you’d like to have known in life and would love to have watching your back from Heaven. Wiggins, poor man, is getting more used to her way of thinking. The mystery is light hearted, fun, and as always, a good read. Hart also writes the Death on Demand series as well as standalone books.

Sandra Murphy lives in the shadow of the Arch, in the land of blues, booze and shoes—St Louis, Missouri. While writing magazine articles to support her mystery book habit, she secretly polishes mystery books of her own, hoping, someday, they will see the light of Barnes and Noble and a Kindle. You can find several of Sandra’s short stories at Untreed Reads including her newest, “Arthur,” included in the anthology titled, Flash and Bang, available now. Look for Denali, in the anthology Dogs and Dragons.

Hanging Out with Bailey Ruth
by Carolyn Hart

When I sat down to write Ghost at Work, the first in the Bailey Ruth series, I intended to create a twin ghost. A young woman looks for a wedding veil in the attic and discovers an unused Baptismal gown. She realizes she had a twin who died at birth. The twin appears as her mirror image, except the twin is a free spirit who turns her sister’s life and romantic plans upside down. (I gave the idea to the struggling writer in Ghost to the Rescue.)

But the twin never appeared in Ghost at Work. Instead that first day, I stared at the blank screen and thought, hey wait, where do ghosts come from? That was easy. Ghosts are spirits of those who have died, so their proper residence is in Heaven. I thought about Heaven. I saw a crystal pillar and light bright as diamonds in the sun and cottony clouds. Suddenly a redhead came swinging around a column of clouds. Bright red curls framed a skinny eager face and shining green eyes. About five-foot-five inches tall and dressed to the nines, she is in her late twenties, and she is Bailey Ruth Raeburn, late of Adelaide, Oklahoma. Bailey Ruth is on her way to Heaven’s Department of Good Intentions. I followed her and we’ve been hanging out together ever since.

I’ve discovered that she’s impulsive, determined, and usually scrambling to follow the department’s Precepts for Earthly Visitation. She once taught high school English and later loved working at the Chamber of Commerce. She was happily married, the mother of two, and when on earth drops by for an unseen visit to her daughter, Dil, and son, Rob. She was directress of the Altar Guild at St. Mildred’s Episcopal Church. She loves gorgeous clothes and quite enjoys choosing outfits that reflect her passion for fashion. She knows she’s not supposed to appear when serving as a department emissary to earth but often feels forced to violate that Precept.

Ghost Times Two is the seventh in the series and one of my favorites. Jimmy is a lovelorn ghost who died young and left behind his adored girlfriend Megan. Bailey Ruth’s mission is to persuade Jimmy to climb the Golden Stairs to Heaven. Jimmy is jealous of Megan’s new love interest, a fellow lawyer, but when Megan is found at the murder scene of her senior partner, Jimmy goes all out to help Bailey Ruth solve the crime, even if Megan will end up in her new love’s embrace.

I hope Bailey Ruth will have another grand adventure. I’m waiting for her to come around that column of cloud and lead the way.

To enter to win a copy of Ghost Times Two, simply email KRL at krlcontests@gmail[dot]com by replacing the [dot] with a period, and with the subject line “two,” or comment on this article. A winner will be chosen October 29, 2016. U.S. residents only. If entering via email please include your mailing address, and if via comment please include your email address.

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Ghost Times Two

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Carolyn Hart is the author of 58 novels of mystery and suspense, notably Letter from Home and Escape from Paris and the Death on Demand, Bailey Ruth, and Henrie O series. She was named a Grand Master by the Mystery Writers of America.