Kay Hudson

We had a weather day today: the temperature dropped, the rain turned to sleet, the schools were closed, and everyone with any sense stayed off the roads. So I sat down with a good book—well, actually, I ran down the charge on my Kindle, but it hung on long enough for me to finish.

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Better Dead is the first in a new cozy mystery series by Pamela Kopfler. Holly Davis has turned her ancestral home on the bank of the Mississippi, Holly Grove, into a B&B in a desperate attempt to keep it, but prospects don’t look good. Business is slow—and changing the place from a residence to a business has doubled the tax bill. But the worst of it is the ghost of her late and unlamented husband, Burl. He crashed his plane before Holly could serve him with divorce papers, and now he’s back, although only Holly and her faithful Yorkie, Rhett, can see him.

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So Holly makes a deal with Burl: she’ll try to help him settle the unfinished business that’s keeping him out of heaven (as if he ever deserved to get in!) if he’ll haunt Holly Grove through the October Haunted Plantation Tour season.

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As if Burl weren’t enough trouble, who should show up but Holly’s long gone high school sweet heart, Jake McCann, returning to the little Louisiana town of Delta Ridge to sub for the local newspaper editor and—unbeknownst to Holly—to investigate the drug smuggling going on at Holly Grove.

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Holly can’t tell Jake about Burl’s ghost—who would believe that? And Jake can’t tell Holly that he’s an ICE agent—she may well be running Burl’s smuggling ring!

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Throw in the local bridge club, with its fearless leader Miss Alice, Jake’s missing (and probably soused) father, an unhelpful sheriff and a very cranky dog, and you have a thoroughly delightful read. (And a few recipes at the end.)

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I’ll be looking forward to Holly’s next adventure, Downright Dead, coming in September.