The Ghost and the Dead Deb

Praise for Alice Kimberly’s first Haunted Bookshop Mystery

The Ghost and Mrs. McClure

“Part cozy and part hard-boiled detective novel with traces of the supernatural, The Ghost and Mrs. McClure is just a lot of fun.”—The Mystery Reader

“[The] enigmatic townspeople come alive in this quirky mystery, and readers will eagerly anticipate future installments—and the continuing easy banter and romantic tension between Jack and Penelope.”— Romantic Times

“A charming, funny and quirky mystery starring a suppressed widow and a stimulating ghost who is attracted to her even though they can only meet in her dreams. He is hard-boiled in the tradition of Phillip Marlowe, and she is a genteel Miss Marple; yet the two opposites make an explosive combination. Alice Kimberly definitely has a hit series if the first book is anything to go by.”

—Midwest Book Review

“A deliciously charming mystery with a haunting twist!”

—Laura Childs, author of The English Breakfast Murder

“This is such a well-written cozy . . . a fabulous first mystery. I highly recommend this book! You won’t want to put it down.”—I Love a Mystery

“Ms. Kimberly has penned a unique premise and cast of characters to hook us on her first of a series.”

—Rendezvous

“What a delightful new mystery series! I was hooked from the start. . . . I adored the ghost of Jack. . . . Pairing him with the disbelieving Penelope is a brilliant touch.”

—Roundtable Reviews

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Sincerest thanks to literary agent John Talbot

and Senior Editor Christine Zika for their valued support—

an intangible yet invaluable commodity

in making ghosts come to life . . .

and making this sort of living.

Thanks also to Kimberly Lionetti

for the all-important start.

And very special thanks to

Major John J. Leyden, Jr. (Ret.),

former field operations officer, Rhode Island State Police,

and Corporal Michelle Kershaw,

detective bureau, Rhode Island State Police,

for 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.

I did not lead a very wise life myself, but it was a full one, and a grown-up one. You come of age very often through shipwreck and disaster, and at the heart of the whirlpool some men find God.

—The Ghost and Mrs. Muir by R. A. Dick (a.k.a. Josephine Aimee Campbell Leslie)

PROLOGUE

I’m licensed as a private detective. . . . The police don’t like me. The crooks don’t like me. . . . My ethics are my own . . . and I’ll shoot it out with any gun in the city—any time, any place.

—Race Williams in The Snarl of the Beast by Carroll John Daly, 1927 (cited as the first hard-