And presumably the book series will eventually end when Sophie's murder is solved and she can move on, but that's me guessing. A fun take on a cozy mystery, where the lead "detectives" are Claire, a thirtysomething Londoner who can see ghosts, and her teenage BFF Sophie, who's been haunting Claire since Sophie's unsolved murder when they were teens.

The exploits of Clare and Sophie as they try to solve this mystery form the backbone of the story but the characters and the dialogue are as much fun as the plot. What follows is an amateur detective cold case murder mystery with a rag tag group of rich relatives, unknown motives and a ghost bestie trying to help out. When she is invited to an old university friend's country pile to provide entertainment for a family party, her best friend Sophie tags along. I also liked the set-up: it's not really a spoiler to say that the protagonist genuinely can speak to ghosts, but I still got caught out by the first twist early in the story and had to go back and read from the beginning again to see how it had been done. And as an added bonus, Claire has a secret past of her own that she doesn’t want her new friends to uncover, and the biggest event in Sophie’s teen life remains a mystery to her and Claire, which remains outstanding even after the book’s dramatic reveal.

Except that at the party they find an unquiet ghost and set out to discover what happened with the two least unbearable members of the family to help them (neither of them are Claire’s uni mate) despite some scepticism. Janice Hallett A delicious mashup of grisly murder, country house and semi-helpful ghosts - imagine a really cockeyed game of Cluedo heavily seasoned with whimsy . Before she moves on, her ghost asks Claire and Sophie to solve the murder of a ghost that WAS murdered on the estate.

Why are they hanging around the house and, far more importantly, which one of the Wellington-Forge's committed the murder?Claire's only real experience solving mysteries is watching a whole lot of a show that sounds like Criminal Minds, so when her latest seance gig embroils her in an unofficial investigation to find out both who the ghost she saw is, and who murdered them, she and Sophie set about trying to solve the case with middling to nonexistent competence, and make some friends along the way. Given her obsession with crime shows—not to mention Sophie's ability to walk through walls—Claire decides they're the best people to solve the case. I will definitely look out for Alice Bell in the future, whether Claire and Sophie are part of it or not.