OLD HAUNTS by E.J. Cooperman

Publisher:  Berkley

Published:   February 7, 2012

ISBN:  978-0425246207

Genre:   Cozy Mystery

Format:  Paperback
Obtained via:  Publisher  

Reviewed by name and email address:  Gina Gina@loveromancesandmorereviews.com

FOUR HEARTS

 

Renovations are Alison’s house are going along pretty well.  Now that she’s decided the best way to provide safety, security and a modicum of privacy for her pre-teen daughter Melissa is to turn the attic into a comfy bedroom the problem is what to do about the pull down stairs.  As she works on the room, debating just what to do, one of the residence ghosts, Maxie advises her that a really good looking guy has just arrived downstairs.  Wishing she was hot and sweaty for other reasons than work Alison heads downstairs to find that the Swine, aka her ex-husband, has returned.  Seeing him hugging their daughter doesn’t give her the happiest of thoughts, but there he is, once again, in her home.  True to form The Swine won’t give her a straight answer why he is in town and Alison doesn’t quite believe it’s because he missed their daughter.

Before she can deal with her ex, however, her other resident ghost, Paul tells her he needs to talk to her.  In no time flat both Paul and Maxie have requests for her – Maxie wants to find out who killed her ex-husband and Paul wants her to find the gal that got away.  Alison’s agreement with the ghosts was that she’d take on investigations as long as they wouldn’t endanger Melissa.  And really, how dangerous can a cold case murder be? 

And then to top it off a rather intriguing biker comes along and wants to hire her to investigate just what happened to a friend of his…a friend who turns out to be Maxie’s ex.  Now isn’t that a curious coincidence?  Or is it?

I enjoyed book one of E.J. Cooperman’s Haunted Guesthouse series, Night of the Living Deed.  Book 2 had what I call “secondbookitis” and was pretty disappointing. Book 3, OLD HAUNTS has Alison, Maxie and Paul back in the saddle, so to speak.  It was a fun and entertaining read.  Cooperman caught me completely off guard with not just who done it at the end, but the clever way the killer is caught. 

Cooperman does a nice job of moving along in a credible time line from book to book as well as how the characters’ relationships change and develop along the way.  Book 3 was a far more believable read, more down to earth, if possible, when ghosts are some of the main characters.  While Melissa takes them at not just face value but understands Paul and Maxie for who and what they are, there is some nice development in how Alison deals with her newfound talent and the fact that two ghosts are now friends and part of her life.

I had a few chuckles around the Swine’s attempts to lure Alison back into his life. 

I do like this series and recommend you check it out.

This is an objective review and not an endorsement of this book.

 

AN UNINVITED GHOST by E.J. Cooperman

Publisher:  Berkley

Published:   January 1, 2011

ISBN:  978-0425240588

Genre:   Cozy Mystery, Paranormal

Format:  Paperback
Obtained via:  Publisher

Reviewed by name and email address:  Gina Gina@loveromancesandmorereviews.com

TWO HEARTS

 

After helping resident ghosts Paul and Maxie find their killer Alison Kerby has not only completed the renovations on her Jersey Shore guest house, she has also gotten her private investigator’s license.  Her agreement with Paul is she’ll take on cases, when she can, as long as they don’t endanger her or her daughter Melissa.  Of course, since she hasn’t hung a “P.I.” shingle she’s not too worried about finding clients…or clients finding her so she’s good to go with her guest house.  Now about that guest house—the big draw, at least for some, is the promise of some ghostly encounters, provided courtesy of Paul and Maxie.

But Paul isn’t quite ready to move and away from the P.I. business.  In fact he’s found a whole new business angle—solving cold case murders but introducing deceased victims to Alison and having her track down their killers.  When Paul shows up with Scott McFarlane Alison is at first confused—Scott isn’t worried about how he died—he’s concerned that he may have killed someone else.  Despite her best intentions and hopes, Paul convinces Alison she had least needs to check out Scott’s story.  Figuring it should be fairly easy to find out if a woman died in the old warehouse where Scott’s incident happened Alison heads down to the police department with some questions.  As one thing leads to another she meets the supposed victim who is actually perfectly okay.  That is she is okay until she turns up dead at one of the ghostly shows at Alison’s guest house. 

I really enjoyed book one of E.J. Cooperman’s Haunted Guesthouse series, NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEED so I was eager to delve into book 2, AN UNINVITED GHOST.  Sadly AN UNINVITED GHOST suffers from what I’m starting to feel is “secondbookitis”.  It seems more and more I totally enjoy book 1 of a series and look forward to book 2.  But something seems to happen along the way—I’m not sure if the author loses momentum or if book 1 is so well conceived that it is a tough act to follow or if my expectations are too high, but lately it seems the second books fall way below the first.  AN UNINVITED GHOST is such a book.

At times it felt like the author lost interest, or ran out of time or just didn’t know where to go with his Topper-like ghosts.  The idea of a ghost wanting some answers about something he did or didn’t do was interesting but the story just didn’t deliver. 

Initially Scott is able to read messages left for him about setting up the victim of what is billed as an innocent prank.  But then it turns out Scott is blind.  Then Scott can travel around at will with no problem finding his way – and that’s without GPS or other tracking devices.  And then, toward the end of the book the author throws in a mediocre explanation which read more like someone pointed out “hey, the guy is blind, how did he read the messages?” causing the author to throw in an explanation.  Instead of making it plausible or re-writing a scene in the beginning to make the reason credible, it’s just added like an afterthought later in the book.  It didn’t work for me.

In NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEED the characters had such great one liners.  The author’s own New Jerseyian personality came out with some wonderfully done witty repartee.  None of that came through in book 2.  It was almost like someone entirely different wrote the book because that fast-paced, wonderful storytelling was gone in this book.

And most disappointing wasn’t so much who did it, but what happened to them.   It made the book more of a weak paranormal than a cozy mystery.

Since the pattern seems to be a great first book, a slow “why am I reading this” second book followed by a really good third book I will continue to at least the next book in the series.  If you like somewhat funny ghost stories give AN UNINVITED GHOST a try. 

This is an objective review and not an endorsement of this book.

NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEED by E. J. Cooperman

Publisher:  Berkley

Published:   June 1, 2010

ISBN:  978-0425235232
Genre:   Cozy Mystery    

Format:  Paperback
Obtained via:  Publisher  Reviewed by name and email address:  Gina Gina@loveromancesandmorereviews.com

FOUR HEARTS

 

On the heels of her divorce from “The Slime”, Alison Kerby has bought her dream home.  Well okay, it’s not really a dream home per se—it is an old house with seven bedrooms, three baths and two ghosts. 

Wait!  Did I say ghosts? 

Apparently so.  Her goal is to turn the century plus house into a guest house—rather than a B&B—on the Jersey shore.  Renovations are going along pretty well until those two ghosts I mentioned turn up.  And they don’t just knock on the door and say “Hi, we’re your resident spirits!” Oh no, the female half of the equation drops a bucket of joint compound on Alison and when Alison wakes up, well at first she’s sure she’s hallucinating with a concussion.  But as time goes by she realizes that yes, Paul and Maxie really are ghosts and they are living in her house.  Why she asks haven’t they moved on to where spirits move on to?  And that’s when things get really interesting—Paul, a private investigator in life, wants Alison to find out how and why he and Maxie were killed.  Alison isn’t so on board with this until she herself begins to receive threatening notes including in her email.  She’s on the fence about getting involved…after all, it’s not like she can really do anything to help Paul and Maxie, right?  But when her daughter, Melissa, is threatened, Alison is on the case.  Can she find the killer before he or she strikes again?

NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEED is the first of E.J. Cooperman’s Haunted Guesthouse Mysteries as well as my first of his books.  It is not the last!  Cooperman (Jeff Cohen has a wicked sense of humour that comes through in his writing.  With parallels that even the characters talk about to the old Topper movies and TV show NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEED is a fast paced and fun read.  I really enjoyed how I’d be reading along, wondering who done it and one of the characters would pop up with a great “Jerseyian” comment. 

The characters are entertaining and each is unique.  At times Maxie really annoyed me but towards the end when Paul explains some things about her I relented a bit.  It also got a tad boring when character after character admitted they could see the ghosts—but then Cooperman turned it around during the bad guy’s take down with one of those “aawwww” moments that made me stop and savour the moment.  I missed my own dad more than usual at that moment.  When the tour bus driver shows up I laughed out loud. 

The hints as to who done it are sprinkled throughout the book – subtly and woven into the telling of the story that when the killer is revealed you have a total ah ha moment. 

I’m not normally a huge fan of paranormals and especially not in cozy mysteries, but Cooperman does it with style.  I’ve already picked up the rest of the series because I can’t wait to see what Alison, Paul and Maxie get into next. 

Fans of cozy mysteries will really like this one.  For readers who haven’t tried one or think it’s not their thing, seriously, check out NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEED.

This is an objective review and not an endorsement of this book.