Preamble
If you’re interested in reading my academic work about detective and crime fiction (free PDFs available), check it out here. Or you can take a look at my short story collection of cosy mysteries featuring Victorian “lady detective” Meinir Davies; order now!
See also
These lists capture other stories and characters that I thought of as I was reading this piece. I won’t explain why, to avoid spoilers, but they’re associations and not ‘if you liked this, then you’ll love…’ recommendations!
- Ghosts
- Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased)
- Jane Hinchey’s Ghost Detective series (Ghost Mortem is a fantastic pun)
- Douglas Adam’s Dirk Gently
Review
I read this quickly over the Easter Weekend, on holiday, and it’s a fun read that did what I was hoping for. It’s also another entry in my extraordinary sidekick compendium (I think maybe I should do a dictionary….).
This is part of the noble tradition of psychic detectives, but more specifically the sub-genre where ghosts are real and are pressed into service to help solve crime. Jobbing medium Claire is haunted—and assisted—by her dead best friend from school, Sophie. She runs into an acquaintance from university who offers her a job entertaining at a family event, and so begins a quasi-country house murder mystery. Nana, now deceased, tells Claire and Sophie that someone died at the event last year, and the ghost is, indeed, grisly. So someone has to find out what’s happened.
Claire pairs up with the only child in the family (the non-binary Alex) and their uncle, former police detective and now gently mopey odd-jobber (Sebastian aka Basher). They plug briefly into the official police system—through Bash’s former partner, Sami—but otherwise this is amateur detective work all the way. Claire rattles around the country, dossing with Alex and Basher in Brighton for an unusually long time (given that she lives in London and none of the witnesses, suspects, or crime scene locations are there). This is a slightly forced “found family” trope, but it’s best not to question it!
The tone here is light and fantastical, close to a YA vibe (but with more dildos, although no actual spice). It’s charming in its characterisations of the principal actors, and all of the ghosts, but less interesting in its characterisation of the suspects themselves. The plotting is pretty good, when it comes to the crime itself. A more orderly approach might have gotten to an answer faster, as there really aren’t that many alternatives, but the charm is in the disorder.
There is a sequel coming out later this year. My guess would be that we’ll find out what happened to Sophie in book 3, but it would be worth sticking around.
Take a look at my short story collection featuring Victorian “lady detective” Meinir Davies; order now!
Dominique Gracia 