While delivering a box of books to an elderly neighbor on tony Larchmont Avenue, Pen finds Timothea Todd dead at the bottom of the stairs in her large mansion.  While there, Pen feels a burst of cold air, usually associated with ghosts, but not from Jack. Pen’s friend and mailman Seymour Tarnish is Todd’s sole beneficiary (save the books she left Pen and Sadie) and the police look at him as a suspect. 

Pen is certain that Seymour is innocent and helps him settle in to the life Seymour is certain he was meant to live.  A strange pentagram etched into the floor of the house and carved into the gates, an odd attorney with an even odder assistant who can actually see Jack (much to Pen’s dismay), and a sixty-year-old case that Pen must see through with Jack may just help solve Ms. Todd’s murder.  

The Ghost and the Haunted Mansion is another great entry into the Haunted Bookshop Mysteries featuring a lively ghost and his young, modern day hauntee, much like The Ghost and Mrs. Muir.  Jack is a wonderful character, and readers will ache along with Pen as they realize that all of their encounters must be, as Jack puts it, “…in your dreams, baby.” 

Pen has moved on -- from the life she shared in Manhattan with her husband, from his suicide, and from her overbearing in-laws.  She has made a life for herself and her son in her Rhode Island hometown and has fit well into the downtown business community.  The mystery, with clues in the past and the present, is clever, with just enough supernatural elements to appeal to more non-traditional readers.  Both the modern setting and the 1940s are written in such a way that readers feel a part of both, and the setting easily swings back and forth between the two. 

Jack and Pen are a terrific duo who prove that love can really transcend anything.                                

--Jennifer Monahan Winberry