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Penelope Thornton-McClure manages a Rhode Island bookshop rumored to be haunted. When a bestselling author drops dead signing books, the first clue of foul play comes from the store's full-time ghost-a PI murdered on the very spot more than fifty years ago.
Is he a figment of Pen's overactive imagination? Or is the likable, fedora-wearing specter the only hope Pen has to solve the crime?
- Sales Rank: #163110 in Books
- Brand: Kimberly, Alice
- Published on: 2004-02-03
- Released on: 2004-02-03
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 6.80" h x .70" w x 4.20" l,
- Binding: Mass Market Paperback
- 272 pages
Review
"A deliciously charming mystery with a haunted twist!"
-- Laura Childs
About the Author
Alice Kimberly is the pen name for a multi-published author who collaborates with her husband to write the national bestselling Haunted Bookshop Mysteries. They also write the bestselling Coffeehouse Mysteries under the pen name Cleo Coyle. They live in Queens, New York.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Acknowledgements
Epigraph
CHAPTER 1 - The Big Ending
CHAPTER 2 - The Author Arrives
CHAPTER 3 - A Postmortem Post
CHAPTER 4 - A Drink before Dying
CHAPTER 5 - Hard-Boiled Bogey Man
CHAPTER 6 - The Morning After
CHAPTER 7 - Crime Scene
CHAPTER 8 - Curious Jack
CHAPTER 9 - Dying for Profit
CHAPTER 10 - Inquiring Minds
CHAPTER 11 - Shadow Boxing
CHAPTER 12 - Dark and Stormy Night
CHAPTER 13 - Don’t Know Jack
CHAPTER 14 - Strangers in the Night
CHAPTER 15 - An Open Book
CHAPTER 16 - Revelations
CHAPTER 17 - A Worthy Suspect
CHAPTER 18 - To Quibble or Not to Quibble
CHAPTER 19 - Things That Get Bumped in the Night
CHAPTER 20 - The Girl in the Frame-Up
CHAPTER 21 - Booked
EPILOGUE
Don’t miss the second charming mystery in the Haunted Bookshop series.
The Ghost . . .
When Jack had been alive . . . the very blood in his veins pulsed to the beat of the city streets (when he’d had blood—and veins, that is).
Why couldn’t he have spent eternity in a place like that?
Instead he got eternity in cornpone alley.
Now the only excitement Jack ever had was scaring the crap out of small-town operators . . .
and Mrs. McClure
Her name was Penelope Thornton-McClure. And he had to admit she showed more moxie than a lot of grown men he’d pranked in the past fifty years.
Certainly, she was the first living entity he’d even considered shifting himself toward since he’d crossed over, which was hilarious because, if he’d read her thoughts right, she didn’t even believe in ghosts.
Well, he hadn’t believed in them either . . .
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either
are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously,
and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business
establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
THE GHOST AND MRS. MCCLURE
A Berkley Prime Crime Book / published by arrangement with
the author
PRINTING HISTORY
Berkley Prime Crime mass-market edition / February 2004
Copyright © 2004 by The Berkley Publishing Group.
All rights reserved.
This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced
in any form without permission.
The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet
or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal
and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic
editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of
copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.
For information address: The Berkley Publishing Group,
a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.
eISBN : 978-1-101-01044-0
Berkley Prime Crime Books are published
by The Berkley Publishing Group,
a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.
The name BERKLEY PRIME CRIME and the
BERKLEY PRIME CRIME design
are trademarks belonging to Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The author wishes to thank
Senior Editor Kimberly Lionetti
and literary agent John Talbot
for their valued support in giving this distinct
physical incarnation to
what began as the ghost of an idea.
And
very special thanks to
Major John J. Leyden, Jr.
Field Operations Officer, Rhode Island State Police
for his helpful answers to procedural questions.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Although real places and institutions are mentioned in this book, they are used in the service of fiction. No character in this book is based on any person, living or dead, and the world presented is completely fictitious.
“You mean there is a hell?” asked Lucy. “Some people might call it so,” said the captain. “There’s a dimension that some spirits have to wait in till they realize and admit the truth about themselves.”
—R. A. Dick, The Ghost and Mrs. Muir
PROLOGUE
My life is my own, and the opinions of others don’t interest me . . .
—Carroll John Daly, “Three Gun Terry,” Black Mask, May 1923 (cited as the first published appearance of a hard-boiled detective)
Quindicott, Rhode Island 1949
Cranberry. What kind of a cornball name was that for a street?
Jack Shepard hauled his powerful frame out of the black Packard and slammed the heavy door, sending a violent shudder through the mass of metal.
Five hours. He’d just spent five dusty hours behind the wheel of this boiler, hunched up like some luckless clipster trying to crack a bag man’s safe.
With easy fingers, Jack buttoned-closed his double-breasted jacket. The suit was gunmetal gray, rising in a V from his narrow waist to his acre of shoulders. Closing his eyes, he imagined a pretty set of hands working over the kinks and knots. Tonight, thought Jack. After the drive back to Manhattan’s crowded dirty noise, he’d find a willing pair in some suds club, like he always did.
Casing the scene, Jack scanned the two- and three-story buildings that lined this lane—a kiddie version of the towering steel and glass where he usually ranged. “Town,” he muttered. That’s what two farmers had called it about ten miles back, out by the cow pasture and old mill, where he’d asked for directions. The “Welcome to Quindicott” sign came next. Farmland after, more of the monotonous rolling green he’d driven through on the way up. Then came the gradual density of houses. Trees and lawns and hedges trimmed by do-right guys. Barking dogs and chubby-cheeked kids. You had your “quaint” town square, your manicured lawn, and your white bandshell with red trim. The whole thing looked so doggone cheery, Jack expected to see a Norman Rockwell signature in the sidewalk.
The “townsfolk” in this homespun little picture looked cheery enough, too, soaking up the last hours of the orange sun’s late-summer juice. Young men in flannel. Old men with clay pipes. Farmers’ wives in gingham, and shop girls with bare legs.
These people were off the cob, all right, Jack thought, starting a casual stroll. Corny as they came. Some rocked on porches, some gabbed on benches, some ambled along the cobblestone lane—and all eyes were on him—
“Who are ya, fella?”
Curious eyes—
“Waddaya want?”
Small-town eyes—
“Ya don’t belong.”
Jack lit a butt from his deck of Luckies, then used a single finger to push back his fedora. You people want a look at my mug? Go on then, look.
Jack’s face wasn’t pretty, but no dame ever complained. His forehead was broad with thick sandy brows; his cheeks were sunken, and his nose like a boxer’s—slightly crooked with a broken-a-few-times bump. His jaw was iron, his chin flat and square—with a one-inch scar in the shape of a dagger slashing across it—and his eyes were sharper than a skiv. Freddie once told him they were the color of granite and just about as hard.
Maybe he was hard, thought Jack. But baby, this was one hick town. No painted dolls or groghounds here. No nickel rats, cheap grifters, or diamond-dripping dames looking to have their husbands set up. Just clean air, families with kids, potluck socials, and farm-fresh moo juice.
A town for settling down. That’s what this place was, thought Jack. A few of those bare-legged, unpainted country dolls passed him, gave him the shy version of the “what’s-your-name-big-fella?” once-over. Nice, thought Jack, eyeballing them right back. Shapely gams. Milky skin. Curves the way he liked them—bountiful. Jack took a long, slow drag from his Lucky and turned away. A man like him had to be careful in a place like this. Say the right thing to the wrong broad and he’d make her about a thousand times more miserable than he was.
With a slight limp, Jack continued his slow stroll—casual, easy, hands in pockets, the ache in his shin an unwanted souvenir from that underpaid job he’d done for Uncle Sam over in Germany. Jack ignored it. Continued to case the scene.
Ahead of him, a row of shops beckoned. Bakery, grocery, dress joint, beauty parlor. There it was: one twenty-two. A little more class than the other places. Probably did business with that fancy Newport set not far away. Wide plate-glass window. Words etched in: We Buy and Sell Books.
Yeah. But did they have the book he was looking for? The one they were looking for? The one they killed Freddie for?
The sun was sinking like a popped balloon now. The day was done, the lights nearly out, and just around the corner, a shadow stained the sidewalk, a city-suited figure, waiting.
Jack cursed low. Thought he’d shaken that tail.
He turned the brass handle, pushed. The shop’s bell tinkled like a bad girl’s giggle. A chill up his spine like a foot on his grave.
The shadow moved closer.
Jack’s hand rose, dipped into his suitcoat, caressed his rod’s handle, smooth from wear. He got a bad feeling, but Jack had gotten them before. And when he started a thing, he never turned back.
Besides, this job was for Freddie, and Jack promised his dead friend he’d ride this train out. All the way to the end of the line.
I stake my everlasting life on it.
When the shadow receded, Jack refocused his attention on the job at hand. Investigation and interrogation were things he’d polished as a private eye, but he’d learned as a cop—back before he’d joined up. In the service, he’d learned a lot more: About men and the things they’d do and say under pressure. About the enemy: how and why they’d lie, and, more importantly, what methods would pry the truth out of them.
The moment of truth came today.
For Jack it came sharp and hard and quick, landing at the back of his skull. But the blow didn’t kill him. The gunshots did. To the head, to the face, to the heart. Enough to make sure Jack Shepard’s everlasting promise to his friend began today . . . along with his everlasting life.
CHAPTER 1
The Big Ending
Murder doesn’t round out anybody’s life, except the murdered and sometimes the murderer’s.
—Nick Charles to Nora Charles in The Thin Man by Dashiell Hammett, 1933
Quindicott, Rhode Island Today
“We killed him!”
I was beside myself. In a frantic state of hand-wringing and head-shaking, I paced the length of the bookshop’s aisle from Christie to Grafton and back again.
“Calm down, dear,” said my aunt, her slight frame tipping the Shaker rocker back and forth with about as much anxiety as a retiree on a Palm Beach sundeck.
“How can I calm down?” I asked. “We killed a best-selling author on the first night of his book tour!”
“Well, the milk’s gone and spilled now. No use crying over it. If you need help calming down, why don’t you have a belt?”
I was not surprised by this rather unladylike suggestion from my aunt. Sadie may have been seventy-two, and barely four feet eleven, but for an aging bantamweight she had a big mouth and a good right hook. The Quindicott Business Owners’ Association never forgot the day she’d spotted a shoplifter at ten yards (putting a Hammett first edition down his pants). She’d taken him out with one sharp Patricia Cornwell to the head.
Most helpful customer reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful.
Potential is there
By Holly
I absolutely love Cleo Coyle's Coffeehouse Mystery series. When I realized this was written by the same team, I was immediately interested since the coffeehouse mysteries can't be published fast enough to keep me happy. I was prepared to love it and be just as enthused about this book as the others.
What I ended up reading was a very light, very fluffy book without much substance. All the elements where there for something I would enjoy: set in a bookstore in a quaint Rhode Island town, lots of townsfolks to add color, a woman who has made a major life change by moving from New York and all the upheaval that goes with that and a ghost that inhabits the bookshop to keep the pot stirred. The mystery and the motive behind it are actually strengths of the book. While enjoyable, the story did not live up to my expectations. My reaction when I finished it was a feeling of disappointment and wondering if that's all there was. The potential is here for the future and I will definintely read the next in the series since I am optimistic that it will be better (again, the Coffeehouse Mysteries are outstanding). There wasn't anything really bad in this book, but the strong sense of place found in most cozies wasn't there and the characters were fairly two-dimensional. Both complaints that can be easily addressed in the next installment.
Not a terrible book, but not satisfying either -- I'll keep my fingers crossed as I plunge into the next one!
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful.
Another solid cozy mystery from Berkley
By Queen's Jester
I'm not as fond of the heroine of the Haunted Bookshop Mysteries as I am bookstore owner Tricia Miles of the Booktown Mystery series (also from Berkley).
Having said that, I must say that author Alice Kimberly crafts a compelling mystery. And while I may not yet fully appreciate the heroine of this work, I strongly suspect that I will come to appreciate her character more as I continue to read other books in this series.
I enjoy the ghost, Jack Shepard. I quickly tired of the overuse of the words "doll" and "gam" in his vocabulary. I can only hope that the more time Jack spends with Penelope, the less need for the gangster-style words.
I have to agree with other reviewers who note that there are a number of paragraphs of information that do little more than create a condescending tone. I find it almost comical when authors / editors try to disquise this tone by delivering the information as dialogue. What I question is why editors don't see past this disquise and put a stop to it.
I rarely appreciate an Epilogue, however, the one included in this work is so well crafted the majority of it reads like a prose poem.
I recommend this series to any mystery lover who enjoys a well-crafted quick read.
20 of 21 people found the following review helpful.
Bookshop haunting
By S. Feicht
What a fun read! Widow Penelope McClure co-owns a bookshop in Rhode Island with her elderly Aunt. Over fifty years ago a hard-boiled detective, Jack Shepard was murdered in the bookshop and has been haunting the premises ever since. When Timothy Brennen, author of the Jack Shield mysteries based on our resident ghost, dies in the midst of his talk, Pen is one of the murder suspects.
Pen must cope with a ghost who speaks only to her, her husband's suicide, wealthy in-laws who want her seven-year-old son, and a business that is teetering on financial disaster. The plot is tight, supporting characters wacky, and the literary mentions make this a satfisfying read. If you are a fan of The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, try this one. And in December the second in The Haunted Bookshop Mysteries will be published.
See all 117 customer reviews...
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