Wanting a fresh start on life for herself and her
daughter, Alison Kerby invests in a turn-of-the-century
Victorian beach house in her hometown of Harbor Haven, New
Jersey with the idea of opening a guesthouse.
The do-it-herself project is coming along pretty well until
Alison is accidentally hit on the head and wakes up seeing
ghosts. Not imagined ones -- the real ghosts of former
homeowner Maxie Malone and her friend, private investigator
Paul Harrison.
The couple had died in the house and their deaths were
deemed a double suicide. Paul and Maxie maintain that
they were murdered. Now they are stuck in the house for
eternity unless Alison can help them find their killer.
Alison is hesitant to take on the sleuthing project until
Maxie's ghostly antics begin to drive her absolutely nuts.
As she delves into the mysterious demise of her two spectral
guests, Alison begins receiving threats that put her and her
daughter in extreme danger if she does not leave the unknown
alone. As Alison turns to Paul for his help, the two
discover that their ghostly partnership just might work out,
if their snooping doesn't lead to chaos, mayhem, and another
murder.
NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEED is the debut novel for E.J.
Copperman's Haunted Guesthouse mystery series. It is
a first-rate novel that blends mystery, a bit of magic, a
ghost or two, and a lot of fun that mystery lovers will
adore. Copperman breaths life into her ghostly characters,
so much so, you forget they are actually
dead. Alison is a smart, ambitious gal who
plays well against the scene-stealing spirits. The Haunted
Guesthouse series promises to be one whose future stories
are anxiously anticipated.
Welcome to the first Haunted Guest House mystery-the getaway every reader can afford.
Newly divorced Alison Kerby wants a second chance for herself and her nine-year-old daughter. She's returned to her hometown on the Jersey Shore to transform a Victorian fixer-upper into a charming-and profitable-guest house. One small problem: the house is haunted, and the two ghosts insist Alison must find out who killed them.
Excerpt
Chapter One “I don’t get it, Mom. If this is our house, why are other people going to live here?” My daughter Melissa, nine years old and already a prosecuting attorney, looked up from the baseboard near the window seat in the living room, which she was painting with a two-inch brush and a gallon can of generic semi-gloss white paint. Never use the expensive stuff when you’re letting a fourth grader help with the painting. “I’ve explained this to you before, Liss,” I told her without looking down from the wall. I was trying to locate a wooden stud, and the stud finder I was using was being, as is often the case with plaster walls, inconclusive. Using a battery-operated gizmo to find a stud and failing: I tried not to dwell on its metaphorical implications for my love life. “Other people aren’t coming here to live,” I continued. “They’ll be coming here when they’re on vacation. We’re going to have a guest house, like a hotel. They’ll pay us to stay here near the beach. But we’ve got to fix the place up first.” “Mr. Barnes says these houses have history in them, and it’s wrong to make them modern.” Mr. Barnes was Melissa’s history teacher, and at the moment, he wasn’t helping. “Mr. Barnes probably didn’t mean this house. Besides, we’re fixing it up the way it is meant to be. I mean, no one would want to live in the house the way it looks now, right?” Our hulk of a turn of the last century Victorian house was not, by the standards of anyone whose age was in the double digits, livable. Sure, the house had once been adorable, maybe even grand, but that was a long time ago. Now, the ancient plaster walls downstairs were peeling, and in some places, crumbling. There was a thick coat of white dust pretty much everywhere, and as far as I could tell, the heating system was devoid of, well, heat. The October chill was already starting to feel permanent in my bones. However, it was clear some work had been done by the previous owner, though by my decorating standards, he or she must have been demented. The living room walls had been painted bright, blood red, and the kitchen cabinets were hideous, and hung so high Shaquille O’Neal would have a hard time reaching the cereal. Luckily, the upstairs walls had been patched and painted, the landscaping in the front of the house was quite lovely (although the vast backyard had been untouched), and the staircases (there were two) going upstairs had been refinished beautifully. It was a work in progress. Slow progress. “I would live here,” Melissa said, and went back to painting. That settled it, in her view. “You do live here,” I answered, not noting that there was no furniture, and we were both sleeping on mattresses laid directly onto the floors of our respective so-called bedrooms and living out of suitcases. Why remind her of all the things we’d left in the house in Red Bank after the divorce? Melissa’s father Steven (hereafter known as The Swine) hadn’t wanted the furniture, but he did want half the proceeds when I sold it all to help make the down payment on the house. The Swine. Besides, now the house was a construction site, and any furniture would be prone to disfigurement or worse while the work went on. As soon as the house was in shape, the new furniture I’d ordered (and in some cases, collected from consignment stores) would be delivered. I hadn’t put down a drop cloth where Melissa was working, because I was going to paint the rest of the wall after I’d made my repairs, and the wall-to-wall carpet in the living room was among the first things I’d decided to remove when I first saw the house. Giving Melissa woodwork to paint was going to be little help in the long term, but mostly, it was a good way to keep her busy.
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