In which trek reviews Night of the Living Deed

I was very excited this summer when I saw a cozy mystery list plug for EJ Copperman's Night of the Living Deed. Copperman is the pseudonym under which Jeff Cohen is writing the Haunted Guesthouse mysteries.

Following her divorce, Alison Kerby realizes that the settlement money isn't going to last forever and that she needs a stable, sustainable source of income for herself and her 9-year-old daughter Melissa. Alison decides to return to her (fictional) hometown of Harbor Haven, New Jersey, where she purchases a vintage Victorian house with the intention of renovating it and running a guesthouse.

Enter the first trope
While working on the kitchen one day, Alison drops a tool. She descends the ladder to retrieve it, apparently jarring the bucket of joint compound which strikes her in the head. Now Alison can see the ghosts. Plural. Male and female she sees them.

Maxie is the ghost of the previous owner who hired a private investigator, Paul, the other ghost, to discover who had been sending her threatening emails, demanding that she leave the house. Now Paul and Maxie want Alison to investigate their deaths - deaths which the police had ruled a joint suicide.

Alison wants nothing to do with investigative work. She's got quite enough going on in her life, fixing up the old house to be ready in time for the summer tourist season. Maxie pressures Alison in the form of destructive pranks. Holes in the plaster and oddly painted cupboard doors do nothing to induce Alison to take on the role of amateur detective...nothing, that is, until she receives her own first threatening email.

Enter the second trope
Patching plaster and gumshoeing for ghosts isn't all Alison has on her social calendar. Melissa's fourth grade history teacher, Ned Barnes, shows a romantic interest in mom. Alison and Ned enjoy their first date in nearby Point Pleasant so as to escape the notice of the natives. In a town as small as Harbor Haven, pretty much everyone knows what everyone else is doing, after all.

Seeing the names of places you know in a book is really kind of cool - especially when you live a small town, not in a major city. Copperman mentions Bayonne, Red Bank, Freehold, and other familiar New Jersey towns. It's almost like running into an old high school classmate in a local coffeehouse and catching up with what has happened in their lives in the past twenty years - where they went to college, how many kids they have, and where they are living today.

There is a metric ton of paranormal fiction on the market today and it isn't all that easy to stand out in the crowd. Copperman manages to do so - and not simply by exploiting his local knowledge. His characters are engaging. Melissa is a typical fourth-grader: she can wheedle ice cream out of the babysitter in a minute flat and while she'll roll her eyes at her mother's restrictions, she's the first one to stand up for mom against Detective McElone's insinuations. Melissa also takes the ghosts in the house right in stride. Alison's own mother drives a Dodge Viper and thinks everything her daughter does is wonderful. Somehow, Copperman keeps his characters just this side of caricature and they remain enjoyable.

Think Pepper Martinmeets Jake Tiptreeand settle in for a riveting mystery served up with a with a side order of romance and a few laughs along the way.

Night of the Living Deed is available both in paperbackand in Kindle edition.(Also available for nook.) An Uninvited Ghost,the second in this series is due out in April 2011. Can't wait.