GHOST SHIP: A Port Chatham Mystery - P J Alderman

From the back of the book: RITA-nominated author P J Alderman's delightful new mystery series blends haunting ghosts with hunting criminals as therapist Jordan Marsh dives deep into the past to solve a modern murder.

A recent transplant to Washington State's charming seaside town of Port Chatham, Jordan is still getting used to sharing her slightly run-down but historic lodging with ghosts. As if living with the long-deceased isn't enough of a challenge, she's just found a corpse: The town's notorious womanizer Holt Stillwell is lying on the beach with a bullet in his head.

Before Jordan can reel in a suspect, another victim surfaces. And this one isn't taking murder lying down. Holt's ancestor Michael Seavey, the Pacific Northwest's most infamous shanghaier, has materialized in Jordan's house, seeking to solve his own death in a suspicious shipwreck in 1893. With two murders to solve and a killer on the loose, Jordan faces yet another equally terrifying prospect: her growing attraction to the very alive and criminally attractive pub owner Jase Cunningham.

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Port Chatham is one of those towns so well-drawn in a book that I want to move there immediately. I want to live in Jordan's neighborhood. Heck, I want to live her ghosted-up house.

GHOST SHIP is the second in the Port Chatham Mystery series and set more in the present day than the first, HAUNTING JORDAN http://iyamvixenbooks.blogspot.com/2011/05/haunting-jordan-port-chatham-mystery-p.html. There are two mysteries going on, one in the past and one in the present, but the one set in the present seemed more predominant. Which meant more time with ghost whispererJordan, hottie pub owner/lawyerJase, police chief Darcy and the ghosts of sisters Hattie and Charlotte.

I like how the townspeople of Port Chatham accept Jordan's newfound ability to see and talk to ghosts. They all wish they could do the same. Jordan only has to accept it herself and not live in denial or try to hide her ability. She does feel compelled to solve the past and present murders or she'll have problems with the extra ghosts who keep appearing in her life.

The books in the series are thicker than your average paranormal amateur sleuth/cozy mystery. That's not a bad thing, by any means. It's that much more to enjoy of this superb series.

Five superb bigger than normal beans....

HAUNTING JORDAN: A Port Chatham Mystery - P J Alderman

From the back of the book: RITA-nominated author P J Alderman weaves present day supernatural sleuthery with nineteenth-century intrigue in the first book of an enchanting new mystery series set in picturesque Port Chatham, Washington.

Jordan Marsh left L.A. for the quaint Pacific Northwest town of Port Chatham in pursuit of some much-needed R&R. As the prime suspect in her cheating husband's murder, she had been hoping to immerse herself in the restoration of the charming Victorian she'd just bought---and put all talk of homicide investigations behind her. But as she soon discovers, the coldest of cases cry out to be solved, too.

For this old house comes fully furnished---with two garrulous ghosts who have a century-old murder of their own they'd like her to look into. Now, if Jordan can keep the L.A. police at bay and sort through a suspect list of shady characters circa 1890, she might just clear a wrongly accused man's name---and her own.

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HAUNTING JORDAN could be a paranormal amateur sleuth, but there is a grit to it that moves it to paranormal suspense. Jordan has been accused of the murder of her soon-to-be ex and there's a cop on her who won't believe she's innocent. All she wants is peace and quiet and thinks that life will be different and, hopefully, better, in Port Chatham.

That's not about to happen with ghosts in the house, the chief of police who already knows too much about her, a handyman/pub owner too charming for Jordan's own good, and a dog who has invited himself to be hers.

It took me a bit to get used to the way the story was told in long flashbacks, but getting the backstory of the two ghosts 'living' with Jordan made the enjoyment of the book that much better. I hope to see development of the demenor of the two sisters in future books in the series. They seemed completely different when they were alive than they do as spirits.

I am definitely looking forward to the rest of the series. Glad I have GHOST SHIP on standby.

Five spirits from the past sparkly diamonds.....