Ghost Image - Ellen Crosby

Ghost Image

Ellen Crosby

Scribner, Apr 21 2015, $25.00

ISBN: 9781451659375

After attending a conference in London, environmental scientist and activist Franciscan Friar Kevin Boyle returns to Washington D.C.  Brother Kevin enthusiastically tells his friend photojournalist Sophie Medina to meet him at his monastery to discuss a rare seventeenth century botany book with modern day medical implications.  When she arrives, Sophie finds Brother Kevin dead in the monastery’s gardens.

Assuming the valuable tome led to the homicide, Sophie seeks the identity of the killer and finding the seventeenth century rare botany encyclopedia that excited her late friend.  She heads to London where Brother Kevin’s recent euphoria began, but soon has a bigger concern when an unknown predator tries to kill Sophie.

The second Sophie Medina investigation (see Multiple Exposure) is an engaging leisurely-paced whodunit in which readers know the why early on, but have plenty of individuals with motives and opportunities.  Although the threat to the heroine seems relatively tepid, Ghost Image is a thrilling mystery as Ellen Crosby (see the Virginia Wine Country cozies) deftly connects the past and present while providing her fans with unique tours of London and Washington.

Harriet Klausner