Betts and Gram try to help out a tourist group by offering the cooking school as a place for them to stay after their hotel was overbooked. Alternate sleeping arrangements are made and three of the tourist are kidnapped. Betts turns on full investigation mode when one of them is found dead by her friend, Jake. Of course a ghost is involved. This time around it is Sally Swarthmore who was accused of killing her parents a la Lizzie Borden. Betts works on both murders putting herself in danger. Always enjoyable to read something from Paige Shelton. 3.5 stars

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This is one good, good series! I started reading it because Paige Shelton lives nearby in Utah. (No, I have not met her.) But anyone would like these stories, even though--to my disappointment--they have NOTHING to do with Utah.

The lead character, Betts dropped out of law school to go home to work in the cooking school owned by her grandmother, Miz (for Missouri), in Broken Rope, Missouri, a tourist town with Old West outlaw trappings. Gram and Betts have the ability to see local historical ghosts, usually one at a time. There's one main ghost per book, who Betts and Gram help solve some age-old problem.

The mystery here was pleasant and sorta believable, and it comes to a satisfying conclusion. I enjoyed meeting Sally Swarthmore, a genial ghost whose conviction for the ax-murders of her parents doesn't sit right with the ghost. Her problem mixes with the current live-people murder till both are solved.

If you can stand the supernatural element here, you'll like the book. I don't have any problem with it because it is handled in a very matter-of-fact, down-to-earth way without mysticism and all the woo-woo crap often found in supernatural fiction.

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