The Ghost and Mrs. McClure

The Haunted Bookshop Mystery Series, Book 1

By: Cleo Coyle

Narrated by: Caroline Shaffer, Traber Burns

Length: 7 hrs and 4 mins

Publisher's summary

The first Haunted Bookshop mystery from New York Times bestselling author Cleo Coyle, writing as Alice Kimberly

Young widow Penelope Thornton-McClure and her old Aunt Sadie are making ends meet by managing a mystery book shop - a quaint Rhode Island landmark rumored to be haunted. Pen may not believe in ghosts, but she does believe in good publicity - like nabbing Timothy Brennan for a book signing. But soon after the bestselling thriller writer reveals a secret about the store's link to a 1940s murder, he keels over dead - and right in the middle of the store's new community events space.

Who gives Mrs. McClure the first clue that it was murder? The bookstore's full-time ghost - a PI murdered on the very spot more than fifty years ago. Is he a figment of Pen's overactive imagination? Or is the oddly likable fedora-wearing specter the only hope Pen has to solve the crime? You can bet your everlasting life on it.

©2004 The Berkley Publishing Group. (P)2018 Blackstone Publishing

Creative take of a ghost detective

The Ghost and Mrs. McClure by Cleo Coyle, Penelope Thornton-McClure, recently widowed when her husband jumped from their building, has returned to her hometown of Quindecot, Rhode Island to help her Aunt Sadie try to save the family bookstore, which they rename Buy the Book. Pen, as she is known, is thrilled to get famous author Timothy Brennan to come to their bookstore on his tour to promote his newest book, Shield of Justice, featuring Detective Jack Shield, based upon 1940s detective Jack Shepard, who disappeared 50 years earlier. As the abrasive, selfish author wreaks havoc in the store getting things set up in his own style, Pen starts to hear a voice heckle Brennan. But no one else hears the voice. This is because she is hearing Jack Shepherd, long- dead and last seen at the family bookstore.

Then during the author reading, Brennan takes a drink of water handed in a bottle to him by Pen. But upon drinking the water, Brennan starts to choke and soon dies. After being served hard liquor by her aunt to help her deal with the shock, Pen ends up drunk and having a shocking conversation with the dead Jack Shepherd, who can hear her thoughts and transmit his own thoughts to her, for the first time ever. However, he cannot leave the property where he was murdered, so as the case progresses and it becomes evident that the police suspect Pen of what they have come to realize was a murder, Jack gives her advice to do her own investigation. Together, they combine their gifts to solve the murder.

I have to confess that I started The Ghost and Mrs. McClure with only medium- level expectations, not having been deeply impressed by another book by the same author and not always liking paranormal mysteries. However, I was pleasantly surprised to discover how much I enjoyed this one. The plot had some creative points, and I liked the angle that Pen knows details about the case that she has learned from Jack, meaning that she can’t tell anyone about these clues. Thus, she has to find other ways to learn the same information.

I found myself connecting with the characters in this book, though Jack’s constant slang from the 40s eventually gets annoying, especially since he tends to repeat the same terms the whole time. I also appreciated the way mystery novels changed Pen’s grieving and sullen son, Spencer into a boy more eager about learning and his mother’s business at the bookstore.

Caroline Shaffer performs the chapters narrated by Pen, while Traber Burns performs the chapters written in 3rd person about the experiences of Jack. It feels a little strange and disjointed to use the two different narrators, whose voices don’t mesh well together. Individually, each does a good job, but I thought they didn’t fir well together.

I had a good time listening to The Ghost and Mrs. McClure. I appreciated the fun details found throughout this book and which kept me listening avidly. I definitely intend to listen to the next book in the series. I give this book five stars.

Great new series

I love Cleo Coyle’s coffeeehouse series and thought I would give this one a try. I want disappointed! I highly recommend this book if you like cozy mysteries. I just purchased the second and third book of the series.

Two distinct voices narrate this delightful story

I almost did not listen to this book, yet I am so glad that I did. As I switched on this audio version of the first in the haunted bookshop mysteries, a gruff male voice began talking. I disliked his tone and his style. Then a female voice continued, and her voice was pleasant and used present day syntax. What we had was two distinct voices narrating this delightful story. The male voice is that of Jack Shepard, the private investigator killed in 1949 in the bookstore that 30-something Penelope “Pen” Thornton McClure now owned with her aunt Sadie. Buy the Book was renovated when Penelope invested the insurance money from her husband’s suicide into the store, relocating with her son Spencer to the Quindicott, Rhode Island store from Manhattan. The construction crews had not scared away the ghost in residence.

Pen has the honor of launching bestselling author Timothy Brennan’s newest entry in his Jack Shield mystery series based loosely on Jack Shepard’s life. Pen is disappointed to find the author rude, pompous, and unpleasant. While speaking, Brennan reveals that Jack Shepard was actually murdered in that very store. Then Brennan keels over dead! During Brennan’s speech, Pen believes she hears a heckler in the crowd, and she hears the same voice later that evening. She isn’t quite sure who this gruff fellow is, telling her she’s a doll. He’s speaking in 1940s English filled with very different slang. Putting together what Jack is telling her now with what she learned from Brennan’s speech, she realizes that she is talking with Jack Shephard, the ghost, speaking silently, in her head, where no one else can hear him.

Strange events begin to unfold as the store sells every copy of Brennan’s book including the 600 more copies ordered at the last minute. The town is crowded with tourists. The police have asked Brennan’s daughter and son-in-law, on hand for the signing, to stay in town pending the medical examiner’s findings. Brennan’s publicist and her assistant stay as well. With Jack’s help, Pen begins to piece together facts uncovered on a “dark and stormy night.” The two bounce ideas around together and separately, ultimately solving, and then guiding others, to the murders.

I thoroughly enjoyed this story. I liked it far beyond my initial impression, since I was confused by this gruff voice much as Pen was. I found the juxtaposition of noir, small town issues, the hopes of a store owner, and the paranormal very appealing. I am very much looking forward to the next entry in the haunted bookshop mysteries.

Excellent new concept

Cleo Coyle has crafted another great series with the Ghost and Mrs. McClure series. I recommend this book to cozy mystery fans.

Ghostly Fun

Truly enjoyable read, you can envision the hard nose detective, and discriptions of the main character and town people were very vivid. Will certainly read more books from this author.

I Love This Series

After finishing Ms. Coyle's Coffee House Series I needed another outlet. This bookshop series is very entertaining. She has a large colorful cast of characters. I'm really enjoying the banter between Jack (the ghost detective) and Pen (co-owner of the bookshop). His 1940's slang is so funny against her present day language.

Woof.

Good lord. The gross over-enunciation of the grating female narrator was so distracting it was hard to actually follow the story. Her hyper-articulated T's, P's and the D's she thinks are T's, not to mention the R's that sounded like she was (hopefully?) swallowing her own tongue, resulted in endless, disruptive mid-phrase breaks, and all of the characters she voices (who are supposed to have different accents) sounding the same. Apparently no one told this reader she was narrating a story, not a random series of words for later reassembly as part of an automated recording. She even unsarcastically insists on using her best, boldly exaggerated primary school teacher sing-song when her written character mocks the recognizable snob diction of the posh private school her son attended at the insistence of her uber-wealthy old money in-laws.

That said, she may have been the perfect reader for the flat, airheaded and frankly not believable main character, whose helpless, pearl-clutching naivety ill suits a supposedly "not-the-1-percent" New Englander with a tough upbringing who lived in New York for years. I'm frankly confused as to why she is even the protagonist - she takes no action, and makes basically no deductions of her own - everything is either done by or at the direction of (or corrected by) a male character. The majority of the book is wasted in long, superficial and often awkwardly sexual descriptions of people's bodies and clothing, and their weird, voyeuristic interactions, with occasional soapbox preaching mixed in. I feel like this is at best a miscategorized trashy romance, or more likely, a bizarre, appalling twist on a softcore rag meant to get churchgoers hot under the collar - whatever it is, the focus is clearly not on the mystery. Don't even get me started on the buffet of demeaning, desperate, clueless female tropes (the crazy gossip, the means-to-an-end, the furious woman scorned, the basket case, the doe-eyed heiress who stands by her poor, cheating man), including the widowed protagonist, who, pure but breathless with desire, goes weak-kneed for every male character she encounters. Even the ghost. For shame.

If you have to read this cringey, campy pastiche of dated stereotypes, at least save your ears and get the Kindle version.

Pretty good

I had my doubts about this book, but, I'm glad I took a chance on it. The characters and plot are well developed.

Totally Captured Me

This is a great mystery novel & had me thinking the whole time. I never expected the ending.

Buy The Book

Great story telling. Enjoyed getting to know the characters. Excited to have a new series to read.