If bed-and-breakfast owners Melanie and Liza, along with their laughing ghost tenant, can’t find a real estate developer’s killer, their own estate will end up with their next of kin.
The Merry Ghost Inn is well and truly open for business. Melanie West and her grandmother, Liza, are rapidly getting the hang of running their charming bed-and-breakfast inn on the rocky Oregon coast. Not that business goes without a hitch—when your hostelry boasts its own laughing resident ghost, you’d better be expect the out-of-the-ordinary. But Melanie and Liza take it all in stride…until a hotshot real estate developer arrives in Sully’s Landing, touting his plans to build a tacky amusement arcade smack dab in the middle of the tasteful cliff-side town.
No one in Sully’s Landing can stand the gaudy developer, but it’s still a shock when he ends up murdered. It’s even more shocking when Liza’s friend, Doug, emerges as the chief suspect. Melanie and Liza put on their sleuthing caps yet again and set out to clear Doug’s name. But the ante is upped when Max, Melanie’s beloved sheepdog/wolfhound mix, disappears.
When Max reappears just as mysteriously as he vanished, with a threatening note attached to his collar, Melanie and Liza know the killer is on to them. They nearly check into accommodations six feet under when, en route to the crime scene, their brakes give out and they narrowly miss plunging over the cliffs to the beach below. Meanwhile, the merry ghost who haunts the inn tries to help by dropping clues for Melanie to find, but her mind is otherwise preoccupied when the killer kidnaps Liza and holds her prisoner.
Now, it’s up to Melanie to piece together the ghost’s clues, save her mother, exonerate her friend, keep her guests happy, and make sure Max gets his walkies in Kate Kingsbury’s third mirthful Merry Ghost Inn mystery, Be Our Ghost.
Another brilliant visit to The Merry Ghost Inn, and it is wonderful to catch up with Liza, Mel, Cindi and of course Max (oh and Orville/Arthur the aforementioned Merry Ghost!) Even though this is set in the run up to Summer it still makes a perfect Halloween read!
Sully's Landing seems the perfect seaside town, shops to wander in, the quirky Hardware Store with the bar/eaterie in it, the B & B and above all the peace and quiet makes it the ideal place to unwind, but changes could be afoot, a Developer wants to take over a few of the stores in the centre of the town and change them into an arcade with gambling machines, fast food places and everything tacky, before he can he needs to get a majority vote from the Town Council on changing the rules for the town and he seems to think that won't be a problem, but Doug (the Hardware owner) and a couple of others are hoping to block it. The plans are blocked well and truly though a few days later when the Developer is killed and Doug is the prime suspect for the murder (although the others at the meeting are also in the frame). With Liza determined to prove Doug's innocence, Mel and Liza start to investigate, only to discover they may be getting too close for comfort to the killer when Max (their rescue dog) is kidnapped, and then the brakes on their car are cut.
Now they really need to put their virtual deerstalkers on before they join Orville in the afterlife.
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