Thursday, February 11, 2016

Ghost to the Rescue by Carolyn Hart (on CD)

Ghost to the Rescue
by Carolyn Hart [Compact Disc Hart]

This is the latest in the Bailey Ruth Raeburn mystery series, featuring a spunky departed spirit from Adelaide, Oklahoma who returns to Earth from Heaven to assist someone in danger. In this case, the redheaded Bailey Ruth is sent back to provide creative inspiration for a young writer, Deirdre Davenport, attending a writing conference sponsored by the local community college. When a scuzzy, opportunistic but influential teacher is found killed, Deirdre is an obvious suspect — he had been trying to coerce her into a relationship in return for a teaching position, and she was one of the last to see him alive. Bailey Ruth quickly shifts from “muse” to “sleuth”, popping in an out of thin air in a variety of guises to help the local police investigate the killing, in the hopes of saving her young charge from jail.

As always, I enjoyed the audiobook version of this a great deal — narrator Ann Marie Lee perfectly captures the personality of Bailey Ruth, and does a remarkably good job creating original voices for the many other characters in the story. This being the sixth Bailey Ruth novel, our spunky spook has established a bit of an ongoing relationship with the local police chief, who is willing to accept some unearthly help in his crime-solving. Overall, though, I will have to admit that this was one of my least favorite in the series — in some ways it feels like each new entry is covering much of the same ground. I’d kind of like to see Bailey Ruth visit somewhere other than her hometown of Adelaide in future adventures! None-the-less, a pleasant “cozy” and particularly enjoyable as a book-on-cd!

[If you enjoy this, you may also wish to try the other volumes in the Bailey Ruth Raeburn series by Carolyn Hart]
 
[ official Bailey Ruth series page on the official Carolyn Hart web site ]

Recommended by Scott C.
Bennett Martin Public Library

Have you read or listened to this? What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?

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