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Ghost Across the Water

by Dorothy Bodoin

Ghost Across the Water by author Dorothy Bodoin is more gothic romance than a straight murder-mystery, yet intriguing all the same to the average reader. There is a modicum of the paranormal, but if you don't believe in ghosts, don't let it throw you – it's not as important as the rest of the story. Ms. Bodoin has evidently made a name for herself in the Romance field with a completely different heroine (and her dog). Ghost Across the Water deserves a spot among the cozies of the mystery and suspense field.

Joanna Larne and her female collie dog, Kinder, are on their way to her new cottage at Spearmint Lake in Michigan for the summer. On the Interstate she's overtaken by two men who insult her speed-limit driving and hurl a beer bottle at her car, leaving a dent before careening past her and on down the highway.

After arriving at her new cottage, Joanna gradually learns more about her neighbors, plus the locals of Green Branch and North Port, the closest towns to Spearmint Lake. One of the things she learns concerns the resident ghost, seen in and about the lake. Ned Seymour was a local cop, shot down in cold blood and left in the woods nearby. No one had ever been able to solve the murder. Naturally enough, Joanna (herself a mystery writer) sticks her nose questionably into the twenty-year-old affair. Naturally, the original assailant attempts to stop her.

The two men who had assaulted Joanna on the road have also taken up residence just across the lake, and seem to be guests of a very wealthy inhabitant who has not only built a Victorian house on the lake but has also bought and refurbished an old inn, some miles away. This rich man had also once been a close friend of Ned's.

Things escalate when Joanna's beloved dog is stolen along with her car, and only recovered when she offers a reward for Kinder – by the two men who had originally taken her Ford Taurus, although there was no way to prove it. Joanna is increasingly attracted to her new acquaintance and lover, Mac, who is also one of the local police. After the requisite attempt on Joanna's life, the actual murderer is arrested.

Ms. Bodoin writes an engrossing story. Her prose is not as intense as some of her peers, leaning more to the romantic side, and I questioned the logic of a policeman in the novel who continually ignores the obviously illegal actions of the two known as Ben and Jerry – but overall Ghost Across the Water is a select romantic gothic.

Alan Paul Curtis

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