This was a unique book with even more unique sleuths. Jack is a ghost from 1940's who has the language and attitude of that time period. Penelope is almost a sidekick, even though she is the main character. II liked the pace of the book and that it was so different from anything I have read for awhile. I highly recommend this book especially if your looking for something different than other cozies

I am not a patient book lover. I don't usually wait long periods of time for a new book in a series. But....there are a few favorites that I don't mind waiting on. The Haunted Bookshop Mystery series is one of those favorites. The husband and wife writing team wrote five books in this series from 2004-2009, and a sixth book was announced. I even knew the title. But.....no book. Assuming publisher/agent/contractual issues at work behind the scenes, I waited patiently. For almost 10 years.

Then......in February this year I saw the book once again had a release date. I have never pre-ordered a book so fast in my life! :) I love this cozy mystery series! The first five books have been waiting patiently on my keeper shelf for their new buddy to show up. And, today, my lovely brand new paperback copy showed up on my porch. Release day delivery is the bomb! I've had a digital review copy of this book on my computer for months....and I read the first half....but I wanted a real physical copy in my hand to finish the story.

This afternoon as soon as all my adulting was done, I shut myself in my room and finished the mystery book I waited 10 years to read.

Loved it!

Bookshop owner Pen McClure is haunted by the ghost of a 1940s detective, Jack Shephard. Jack can be a pain at times, but he also helps her when problems arise. Like murders, dead bodies, criminal investigations....run of the mill events around her store, Buy the Book. In this long-anticipated sixth book in the series, Pen is excited about brisk sales for a new racy bestseller, Shades of Leather, until a customer takes one look at the cover and runs out of the shop without paying for the book. That's just the first weird event. People associated with the book start dropping dead. Sex sells.....but sometimes it also kills. Pen & Jack are on the case again, hoping to track down what's so killer about the spicy new release.

It was so awesome to finally get to read another mystery with Pen and Jack! So worth the wait!

The first five books were published under the pseudonym Alice Kimberly. Alice Alfonsi and Marc Cerasini published this new book under Cleo Coyle, the penname they use for their Coffeehouse Mystery series (another cozy series I love!).

Can't wait for the next book! :)

**I voluntarily read an advanced readers copy of this book from Berkley Publishing via NetGalley. All opinions expressed are entirely my own.**

Jack’s back! After a long wait, Penelope, a bookshop owner, and Jack, her ghost-in-residence are back. And just as feisty as ever. One of their customers, who becomes extremely upset after seeing an author’s photo on the cover of a new bestseller, is found dead. Jack and Penelope decided to investigate and the mystery begins.

This is a cozy mystery that has all the right elements – a good mystery, interesting characters (like Jack, who is the ghost of a 1940’s PI who died in the bookshop), a little humor, some twists and unexpected turns and a satisfying ending.

Fans of the Haunted Bookshop series will be more than delighted that the series has resumed. Readers who haven’t read the other books in this series will still find The Ghost and the Bogus Bestseller a great read. There is enough backstory and information to bring you up to speed in no time and the story will definitely hold your attention to the end.

All in all, this is a great cozy mystery. All I can say is: Welcome back, Jack! It’s been too long!

Many thanks to Net Galley and the publisher for providing a copy of this book for review.

“Your eyes are bigger than a hooch hound at a hop joint” says Jack in the Ghost and the Bogus Bestseller. That perfectly describes my feelings when I saw this delightful series return after a ten year long Big Sleep.

Penelope runs a bookstore with her aunt Sadie in Quindicott, Rhode Island. A widow, after her husband’s suicide, Penelope returns to her hometown with her eleven year old son. While renovating the bookstore, she disturbs Jack, the ghost of a 1940s hard-boiled detective. Jack offers Penelope much unsolicited advice in the patois of his time.

At the bookstore, new customer, Emma, sees an author photo on a steamy novel that disturbs her. While the author’s name is not familiar, the author’s photo is. It’s Emma herself! Without paying, Emma races out with the book in hand.

Penelope uncovers Emma’s address and goes there after work to recover the book. She finds the door unlocked, rare books everywhere and Emma dead of an apparent suicide. When incompetent Chief Ciders refuses to look into the case as a suspicious death, Penelope and Jack investigate.

I read most of this series as they were published in the 2000s. I always enjoyed the gentle joshing of Sam Spade type detectives. The Ghost and the Bogus Bestseller carries on seamlessly in this tradition. Despite his language and tough guy attitude, Jack seems like a real and caring person. Emma is an excellent amateur detective who rarely makes a wrong move—mostly because of Jack’s help.

The Ghost and the Bogus Bestseller is highly recommended for cozy mystery readers looking for something a bit different. There are plenty of suspects and deaths to keep armchair detectives busy. 4 stars!

Thanks to the publisher, Berkeley Books, and NetGalley for an advanced copy.

I received a digital ARC from Net Galley in exchange for an honest review of this book.

After a hiatus in the series, The Ghost and the Bogus Bookseller is the latest installment in the Haunted Bookshop Series. Although I have not read the previous books in the series, I don't think it was a hindrance. The story stands alone nicely. The author brings in enough background information so that the reader understands the history between Penelope and Jack, her ghostly partner.

Penelope, a young widow, co-owns a bookshop with her Aunt Sadie in Rhode Island. The bookshop, Buy the Book, is haunted by a 1940's detective, Jack Shepard. The story opens with a flashback to a case Jack was asked to solve in the 1940's. Then the story fast forwards to present day when a sophisticated new customer is so shocked with what she sees on the cover of a racy new bestseller, that she bolts out of the store with the racy book in hand. So begins, Penelope to solve a present-day mystery that intertwines with a 1940's mystery with Jack's assistance.

Adding the ghost of Jack brings a unique perspective to the story. His line of thinking is every bit the hard-boiled 1940's investigator. It provides a fun contrast to Penelope's methods for solving the mystery. The fast-paced story had plenty of clues along the way and made for a fun read!

You're going to like this one. Perfectly fine as a stand-alone as the author sprinkles in a bit of exposition here and there to catch you up on how things came to be. But you will want to go to book one so you can really get to know Pen and Jack and see their journey. I love how the author keeps the two worlds clear with color, lingo, and pacing, separating the present with Jack's time period. And how Pen gets there, while not technically and fully explained, seems to work and maintains a needed sense of mystery about it. A couple of times the author so cleverly alluded that maybe it really was only Pen's dream. Which I immediately shrugged off since I'm in love with Jack. There's humor, flair, and a good solid plot. After hitting the town with Jack and Pen and experiencing the two separate worlds they live in, I felt a subtle undercurrent of bittersweet, almost sad poignancy between the two that leaves me hoping one day they will truly be together.

Embroiled in another mystery, Pen, a bookstore owner, works with the ghost of a former gumshoe to solve the murder of a local woman. With the same local characters from the earlier books, the writing team behind Cleo Coyle comes back with an entertaining story.

The Haunted Bookshop series is fun and I was happy to get my hands on a review copy of the latest. I'd previously read the first three books in the series (this is the 6th), and I liked each one a little more than the first, which I found a bit flat. I get the impression the series continued to improve over time, because I quite liked The Ghost and the Bogus Bestseller and read it straight through one lazy afternoon.

This time, Penelope McClure is about to sell a copy of the latest bestseller, a 50 Shades style erotic novel, to a woman who, upon seeing the author photo on the dust jacket, grabs the book and runs away. When the customer turns up dead, Pen and Jack, the ghost of a dead 1940s P.I. start to dig into the mystery author of "Shades of Leather" and unravel what happened to the dead woman.

The story is well-paced with plenty of clues and dead ends dropped in for fun. Pen and Jack's relationship is still fun, and I love the dream sequences where Pen travels back to the 40s with Jack to find connections between his old cases and the one in the present day. Fans of the series will be glad its back, but I think any mystery lover would enjoy it, too.

Penelope Thornton-McClure is a widow with a young son who moved to Rhode Island after her husband's death. After renovating the bookstore that she now co-owns with her aunt Sadie, she discovered that she can communicate with the spirit of a dead private detective, Jack Shepard, who was murdered on the premises back in 1947. She's become used to having him around, which is a good thing since it's apparent there's no lack of crime in small-town Quindacott, and he guides her as she conducts her own investigation along the way.

This time a distinguished older woman has entered her shop for a copy of the newest bestseller, Shades of Leather. But seeing the book has upset her as she exclaims that the young woman on the cover is herself. She runs out of the store, unpaid book in hand, and Penelope is so disturbed by her reaction that she vows to track her down (and, as Jack quite often points out, get the money for the book).

Seeing that the woman left her gloves behind gives her a reason to do so, and as she discovers the information she needs, she goes to the woman's residence - a run-down sort of older Victorian home - and she enters but only finds a parrot. Exploring further she notes that the woman has a wonderful collection of first editions, and exploring further still, she discovers the woman's dead body below a balcony, apparently from a fall.

But Penelope becomes suspicious, sure that any woman who left a dinner still cooking in a crockpot and no suicide note is a victim of foul play. While the police think differently, Jack's on her side as she begins her own probe into the death. She asks the help of her friend Seymour Tarnish, a local postman who has also agreed to temporarily take the bird; and what he discovers after reading the book makes him realize that another friend - J. Parker Brainert, a local college professor - is involved more than he's admitting. But when she finds that Professor Brainert might also be in danger Penelope (and Jack) step up their investigation to get a killer to confess before he or she can kill again...

It's been a few years since the last book in this series was published, and I, for one, am glad to see the resurrection has finally come about. The author has indeed given us a delightful book with Pen and Jack, and it is all that I've hoped for.

The mystery is written extremely well, and the characters are like old friends returned to us after a long absence. I find Seymour rather endearing this time, even in his penchant for kitsch. He's a staunch friend and intelligent enough to figure things out on his own.

This time out we also have a friend of Spencer's, Amy Ridgeway, a precocious twelve-year-old who manages to temporarily join the household and also endear herself to the family with a clear aptitude for learning about the bookstore and how it's managed. I can see her returning to future novels. There's also a bit of humor about something Jack's discovered that's a favorite of Spencer's and brings a bit of lightness to the story.

I also love the dream sequences between Pen and Jack where she's transported to his time, in the guise of helping her solve the murder of her own. It says a lot about the writing that it seems perfectly natural for Pen to transport between eras seamlessly and become a part of Jack's world as much as he has (or can, insofar as a ghost is able) become a part of hers.

The tale is woven tightly and there are plenty of twists and turns, with a lot of red herrings thrown in. While there are misconceptions throughout, this seems necessary for the story to succeed and only adds to the pleasure in reading. When the ending comes and the killer is revealed, everything falls into place nicely as it should giving us a final sense of satisfaction. It says a lot when you close a book and there is a smile on your face, as this one brought to me. Once again, I am glad to see this series brought to life and hope that it's a good, long one. Highly recommended.

So happy to see Alice Kimberley’s characters come back because I know they have more stories to tell us.

I’ve been waiting for this book for a long time 8 or 9 years. I enjoyed it, and I hope that there will be more.

The long awaited next book in the series is due out Sept 25 2018. This book has been worth the wait. Well written, fun characters and a great mystery. The live main character, Penelope (Pen) Thornton-McClure, is back, working with the ghost main character, Jack Shepard. Once again Jack is able to give her guidance from his past cases. Pen is also having to deal with her son and his friend while trying to solve the mystery.

I received an eARC from Berkley via NetGalley for my honest review I love this series and am so glad it is back.

I am a newcomer to the Haunted Bookshop Mysteries and understand that this sixth installment is long awaited and highly anticipated. I believe fans won't be disappointed.

This cozy series features a ghost and Mrs. Muir vibe with bookstore owner Pen solving mysteries with the help of 1940s hard boiled P.I. Jack Shepard's ghost. Pen's modern day whodunits correspond to elements of Jack's old cases, and he communicates visions of his investigations to Pen at pivotal points in her inquiries. I have to admit that I found this plot device a bit distracting at first, but grew to look forward to Jack's appearances.

In this installment, the mystery involves the authorship of a 50 Shades of Grey-like bestseller and the disappearance of a woman who claims she is the subject of the book's provocative author photo. The plot featured an abundance of red herrings and plausible suspects as well as a cast of amiable supporting characters whom I suspect have been regulars throughout the series.

I will be back for future adventures with Pen and Jack and hope that this successful foray will signal a return to a more regular publishing schedule for the duo.

Full Disclosure--Net Gallery and the publisher provided me with a digital ARC of this book. This is my honest review.