Sun 16 Dec 2018
Mystery Review: ALICE KIMBERLY – The Ghost and the Dead Man’s Library.
Posted by Steve under Bibliographies, Lists & Checklists , Characters , Reviews[5] Comments
ALICE KIMBERLY – The Ghost and the Dead Man’s Library. Penelope Thorton-McClure & PI Jack Shepard #3. Berkley, paperback original; 1st printing, September 2006.
Even though this was both written and published for the “cozy mystery” market, there are a few things going on that might attract the attention of male readers as well. It did me. For one thing, Penelope McClure owns and operates an independent bookstore in a small town in Rhode Island. For seconds, the entire plot revolves about an obscure set of the collected work of Edgar Allan Poe — and even better, there’s a strong hint that there’s a code to a unknown treasure hidden within their pages.
But wait, wait, as they say, there’s more. The bookstore is haunted. The ghost of a private detective named Jack Shepard, who died in the 1940s, can only be seen and heard by Pen, however, and yet they communicate well enough for him to be her assistant of sorts whenever she gets involved with a case of murder, which seems to occur fairly often.
Shepard’s way of speaking comes straight from the second or third tier of detective pulps. The quotes from the stories at the beginning of each chapter come from the better pulps of the same era, however, and these fit in very well, often to perfection.
But as in all the cozies I’ve read or know about, Pen has other problems. Besides the death of the frail old man who gave her the books to sell for him, Pen also has to keep her store going, deal with customers and the like, and as a major subplot, her 10-year-old son’s being bullied at school.
Even with Jack’s help, Pen’s attempt to solve the mystery is quite amateurish, which in all honesty, is exactly how it should be. The secret behind Jack’s murder, which occurred in the bookstore in 1949, is left to be revealed in later books, perhaps. Altogether, an interesting concept for a series, but for me — not a member of its primary target audience — this particular entry promised quite a bit more than it was able to deliver.
Bio-Bibliograhical Notes: Alice Kimberly is the joint pen name of a husband and wife writing team (Marc Cerasini and Alice Alfonsi) who also write a series of “Coffeehouse Mystery” novels as Cleo Coyle.
The Haunted Bookshop series —
The Ghost and Mrs. McClure. 2004
The Ghost and the Dead Deb. 2005
The Ghost and the Dead Man’s Library. 2006
The Ghost and the Femme Fatale. 2008
The Ghost and the Haunted Mansion. 2009
The Ghost and the Bogus Bestseller, as by Cleo Coyle. 2018
December 17th, 2018 at 7:36 pm
My problem with cozies is generally in the area of promising more than it delivers, largely because the elements that cozy readers are interested in tend to detract from the mystery, detection, and suspense I’m looking for.
It used to be, and there still are thankfully, that women writers who primarily aimed at women readers also wrote mysteries that appealed to both sexes. Charlotte Armstrong, Mary Stewart, Phyllis Whitney, Joan Aiken Hodge, Elizabeth Peters, and others wrote books aimed at women readers, but were good enough purveyors of mystery and suspense to have male fans follow them also.
Cozies on the other hand are a closed circle. They don’t seem to want to expand their readership base, and they so cater to the special needs of the genre that there isn’t much to draw outsiders in. I know the same can be said of men’s action writers and adult western series and other male oriented genres, but those genres haven’t pushed the majority of other books in their field off the racks as cozies have.
I’m not sure I would have believed at one time that there would be a sub genre of mystery that so dominated the stands that made Miss Marple, Miss Silver, and Miss Pinkerton look hard-boiled.
December 17th, 2018 at 8:13 pm
That last paragraph of yours, David, is as true as it could be. (In spite of its limitations, though, I think the one I just reviewed is one of the better ones.)
December 19th, 2018 at 1:04 am
I remember reading this series. It wasn’t a very successful serial to my mind because the ghost detective was too much of a cliche and being bound to the bookstore limited his effectiveness.
December 19th, 2018 at 10:10 am
That may have been true in the beginning, but by the time of this one, the authors had come up with a gimmick to get around that particular problem. I don’t have access to the book right now, but I think it was an antique nickel somehow associated with Jack that if Pen carried it with her, it allowed her to communicate with Jack in her mind.
December 20th, 2018 at 9:01 pm
PS. I assumed I was not, but it is nice to have it confirmed that I am not the only male reader of this book.