by Olivia Blacke
Publisher: Minotaur Books
Pub Date: October 29, 2024
Genre: Adult, Mystery, Paranormal
Format: eARC
Source: Publisher
Book Links: Goodreads Amazon
Ruby Young's new Boston apartment comes with all the usual perks. Windows facing the brick wall of the next-door building. Heat that barely works. A malfunctioning buzzer. Noisy neighbors. A dead body on the sidewalk outside. And of course, a ghost.
Since Cordelia Graves died in her apartment a few months ago, she's kept up her residency, despite being bored out of her (non-tangible) skull and frustrated by her new roommate. When her across-the-hall neighbor, Jake Macintyre, is shot and killed in an apparent mugging gone wrong outside their building, Cordelia is convinced there’s more to it and is determined to bring his killer to justice.
Unfortunately, Cordelia, being dead herself, can't solve the mystery alone. She has to enlist the help of the obnoxiously perky, living tenant of her apartment. Ruby is twenty, annoying, and has never met a houseplant she couldn't kill. But she also can do everything Cordelia can't, from interviewing suspects to researching Jake on the library computers that go up in a puff of smoke if Cordelia gets too close. The roommates form an unlikely friendship as they get closer to the truth about Jake's death…and maybe other dangerous secrets as well.
Cordelia is in her 40s, has an annoying roommate who's let all her plants die and is sitting outside waiting on her neighbor Jake to wake up as a ghost.
Oh yeah, did I mention that Cordelia is
a ghost?? Yep, a ghost who still hangs out in her old apartment and
dealing with Ruby. Who doesn't quiet know she's got a ghost friend
hanging out. That is until a green sweater proves her theory of Cordelia
haunting the place.
Together they try to figure out how to work together to solve Jake's murder. They aren't your typical crime solving duo, but they sure do make it work in their own way. I really liked watching Ruby and Cordelia work together. It has it's perks having a ghost a friend, even more so with Cordelia being kind to Ruby and watching Ruby grow on her, even if she did destroy nearly all her plants.
Overall this was the kind of cozy mystery that can be read by the fire, snowed in or whatever reason. A quick read that it sure to keep you asking all the questions and wanting more of this lovely duo.
