The Ghost and the Dead Man's Library: 09/24/21

The Ghost and the Dead Man's Library by Alice Kimberly is the third in the Haunted Bookshop mystery series. Penelope Thornton-McClure and her aunt have been summoned by her aunt's old boyfriend to his crumbling family estate. He is a book collector and he has a complete collection of Poes to sell on commission. Just after giving the women the books, they find him dead at the bottom of stairs he said he no longer could climb.

A collection of rare, old books, brings first to mind Classified as Murder by Miranda James (2011). Instead, though, it's thematically closer to The Poe Shadow by Matthew Pearl (2006) and The Club Dumas by Arturo Pérez-Reverte (1993).

Of course the present day mystery is also thematically tied to one of Jack Shepard's old cases.

Fortunately these flashbacks, told through dreams narrated primarily by Jack are taking less time each new volume. Book three had a fairly good balance between the new and old, meaning there was less time spent on listening to Jack's 1950's toxic masculinity fueled banter.

The fourth book is The Ghost and the Femme Fatale (2008).

Four stars

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