HAUNTED HOUSE MURDER
Maine Clambake Mystery, # 7.5
Leslie Meier, Lee Hollis, Barbara Ross
Kensington Books
August 27, 2019
Every year on our Maine vacation I put aside at least one book set in Maine. One of this year's books is Haunted House Murder, a compilation of short works from three writers who have well-established series set in small-town Maine.
Leslie Meier's Haunted House Murder features Lucy Stone, part-time reporter and mom (now grandmom) in Tinker's Cove, Maine. A long-abandoned house, reputed to be haunted, has new occupants. Ty and Heather Moon. The Moons are unfriendly and eccentric, to say the least, but Lucy is occupied with having her grandchild visit for two months. She is delighted to have him but finding childcare more of a challenge than she remembers from raising her own four children. But when a child goes missing, Lucy's sleuthing instincts kick in.
Lee Hollis' Hayley Powell of Bar Harbor in Death by Haunted House also has eccentric new neighbors: a family who strongly resembles the Addams family. Hayley is willing to let well enough alone until a local realtor goes missing after a violent confrontation with the father of the new family, Damien Salinger. Hayley, with the help of her new puppy, finds the realtor's body but lots of people in Bar Harbor didn't like the victim.
The people of Busman's Cove are always looking for ways to extend the tourist season and this year have planned a Ghost Tour in Hallowed Out. Julia Snowden throws herself into participating, but she thinks that the ghosts of the town are much more imagined than real. But when an actor from New Jersey is murdered during a reenactment of a Prohibition-era incident and innocents are suspected, Julia finds herself in the thick of things.
Haunted House Murder is an entertaining compilation for Halloween. I was a little disappointed in the longest of the three, Haunted House Murder, which was heavy on Lucy's childcare woes. The other two shorts introduced me to two new amateur sleuths I plan to read more about in the future. Thanks to NetGalley and Kensington Books for an advance digital copy. The opinions are my own.
RATING- 3.5 Rounded up to 4
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