Old Haunts

Old Haunts
E.J. Copperman
290 pages
Publisher: Berkley Prime Crime
Source: purchased
★★★★★

You can read the Goodreads summary here.

Ahh... another fantastic installment of the Haunted Guesthouse Mystery series.  It's summer now at the Jersey Shore, and Alison has a new set of a guests and a new set of problems... her ex-husband, a.k.a. The Swine, has just showed up on her front steps claiming he wants to be reunited with her and their daughter, Melissa.  On top of that resident ghost Maxie just discovered her ex-husband has been found murdered and she wants Alison to do some sleuthing to find out who did it.  Resident ghost Paul also has a mission for Alison, find his "still-living almost- fiancée" and make sure she's doing okay without him.

As you can tell, Old Haunts was packed with juicy plot.  I was most looking forward to reading about The Swine's infamous return and I was not disappointed.  Of course, the murder mystery was the main focus of the book and that did not disappoint, either.  Big Bob, the murdered ex-husband, sounded like a good guy and I wanted his death solved right along with Maxie.  Like the two previous Haunted Guesthouse novels, though, I did not see that murderer coming... until s/he was about to strike again!  I couldn't believe it!

Let me tell you what I really love about this series, though, aside from the clever crimes.  There's practically a while new cast of characters in each book as a new rotation of guests comes to visit.  I love this!  Alison's interactions are always great to read about as she faces both gracious and difficult guests; this really helps keep the series fresh.  In Old Haunts, for example, we meet Francie, a spunky guest determined to get a personal paranormal experience she can brag to her friends back home about... and the books flying around by themselves are not convincing enough for her!

I'm telling you, The Haunted Guesthouse series is something you must pick up if you love cozies and/or paranormal books.  I think you'll be as delighted with them as I've been and I am, as always, looking forward to future books.