Review: Ghost at Work

Author: Carolyn Hart
Narrator: Ann Marie Lee
Format: 8 discs (10.75 hrs)- 336 page equivalent
Characters: Bailey Ruth Raeburn, Kathleen Abbott, Sheriff Cobb, assorted good and bad guys
Subject: Murder in a small town
Setting: Adelaide Oklahoma 
Series: Bailey Ruth Mysteries #1
Genre: Cozy mystery
Source: Overdrive download from public library
Challenge: Support your Public Library, Thrillers and Suspense, Audio Books


A pleasant cozy. Bailey Ruth Raeburn has already died and gone to heaven. After a while of almost boring wonderfulness, she enlists in the heavenly rescue squad to return to earth and help people in trouble. Her first assignment is to go back to her hometown of Adelaide Oklahoma to help her grand niece Kathleen Abbott who is afraid she or her husband, the rector at St. Mildred's episcopal, will be accused of murder. After all, there is a dead body on the back porch of the rectory.

Bailey Ruth didn't have time for training in heaven before she undertook this assignment. Her continual violation of the "heavenly precepts for emissaries" lands her in hot water with her heavenly mentor Wiggins as she tries to intercept evidence, interview suspects, and find out who dunnit while keeping herself invisible. Her appetite for good home cooking keeps getting in the way, and her need to help constantly has objects flying through (or suspended in) the air as she whizzes, whisps, and zooms from spot a to spot b, all the while forgetting that while she may be invisible the bag of evidence she's just scooped up isn't. Neither can the corporeal objects melt through solid walls or doors. Her antics to overcome these difficulties are truly amusing.

All in all, Hart presents us with an endearing character, a solid plot, lots of good suspects, and a fairly surprise ending. I'll be looking for another of these to see if Bailey Ruth can learn how to do this job in a more efficient manner and whether she'll be able to get off probation and become a full-fledged emissary.