Murder, She Wrote: The Ghost and Mrs. Fletcher by Jessica Fletcher
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
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The Ghost and Mrs. Fletcher is the 44th-book in the long-running and very beloved Murder, She Wrote mystery series.
Incidentally, this is the 40th-book that I have read from this series and with the 56th-book set to release in January of 2023, I still have quite a few more to go!
Suffice it to say, a lot of people love solving mysteries with Jessica Fletcher. These books are such a comforting place for me. I have been reading these books since I was kid, when I also watched the television program with my parents.
Angela Lansbury is a goddess.
In this installment, set completely in Jessica’s hometown of Cabot Cove we have a large, recently vacated home with a potential ghost and a thousand books. Are you intrigued yet?
When fellow Cabot Cover, Cliff Cooper, passes away, Jessica agrees to help local realtor, Eve Simpson, prepare his former home, the historic Spencer Perry house, to sell.
According to Cliff’s final wishes, relayed to Jessica herself, the proceeds of the sale are then to go to his last remaining heir, his grandson, Elliot.
Cliff raised Elliot on his own after the mysterious disappearance of Elliot’s parents, Cliff’s son and daughter-in-law. It’s rumored the couple left their newborn baby with the elder Mr. Cooper so they could travel to South America on an anthropological expedition.
Jessica’s main contribution will be sorting through Cliff’s thousands of books to prepare them for sale. Her motivation is that the proceeds will be donated to the Cabot Cove library.
The house is literally packed to the gills with stuff. Jessica can hardly believe the state of it, but she promptly gets to work even amidst the circling rumors that the house is haunted. The rumors are so prevalent that Eve has had a hard time finding people to work at the property.
Therefore she resorts to hiring an unknown handyman, an apparent drifter to handle the repairs, as well as a medium to help chase away the ghosts.
Jessica just wants to quietly sort books, but the chaos Eve has created with all these unknown people makes the whole process completely uncomfortable for her. The last thing she needs is some medium including her on a ghost hunters YouTube series.
When it turns out that the late Cliff Cooper didn’t die of natural causes, however, Jessica can hardly extricate herself from the scene. She can’t help but dive into a mystery.
Thus, Jessica begins an investigation into the Cooper family, their home and who could have possibly wanted Mr. Cooper dead. It’s a real puzzle and the deeper she digs, the more confounding it gets.
As with all MSW mysteries, I had a lot of fun with this. It’s always so nostalgic to crack a spine of another Jessica Fletcher story.
Since this one is set in Cabot Cove, all Jessica’s friends and regular acquaintances make an appearance here. I will say, just for me, I tend to enjoy the stories where Jessica is traveling just a little bit more, but that is 100% personal taste.
Either way, this is a solid, fun mystery, with great twists, turns and reveals. I am so happy that I finally got a chance to read this one and look forward to my next Murder, She Wrote story.
