Ghost At Work-Carolyn Hart

Ghost At Work
Carolyn Hart
Morrow, Oct 2008, $24.95
ISBN: 9780060874360

While sailing off the Gulf of Mexico, Bailey Ruth Raeburn and her husband Bobby Mac die during a storm. However, instead of enjoying Heaven for eternity, Bailey, understanding the Precepts for Earthly Visitation rules as part of the Department for Good Intentions, is sent back to her hometown of Adelaide, Oklahoma to help her niece Kathleen Abbott, the wife of a local rector.

Kathleen found a corpse on her back porch. Instead of reporting it to the cops, Kathleen with Bailey Ruth’s assistance moves the body to a nearby cemetery. Bailey Ruth investigates the homicide, but finds many in the town loathed the victim. Still she keeps digging although she knows when she returns to heaven she will be disciplined for violating the prime directive on visits to earth.

This is an entertaining paranormal amateur sleuth starring a heavenly agent who breaks the rules in order, to the “cardiac arrest” of her superior, to help those in need. The story line is lighthearted yet charming as Bailey Ruth works the case by eavesdropping though many of those conversations are unrelated to her mission; she is nosy. With enough suspects to fill the choir and a bureaucracy running Heaven, fans will enjoy Carolyn Hart leaving her “Death on Demand” and Henrie O sagas to introduce her audience to a fresh fun heaven on earth detective.

Harriet Klausner