Wednesday, October 19, 2022

"A Temporary Ghost" by Michaela Thompson


So far, Georgia Lee Maxwell is managing her transition from the Florida Panhandle to Paris, despite becoming involved in an investigation into a stolen art object and two murders (See Magic Mirror, the first in the series). Now she has an extended gig as a ghostwriter for a somewhat notorious New Yor society figure who’s living near Avignon in Provence.  

The reason for the notoriety is that her husband was murdered two years before, and she was the chief suspect. She hires Georgia Lee to help her write her side of the story, which, given the publicity surrounding the case, should bring in a considerable income. And the woman needs money; she’s fighting with her husband’s family over the estate. 

 

Georgia Lee finds the group in Provence somewhat strange, to say the list. The daughter seems bereft, wandering around and writing a story called The Book of Betrayal. The family butler or manager from New York is there, and he may know more of what happened with his employer’s murder than anyone. The socialite has also brought along her lover, an artist who seems unable to create anything since the murder. 

 

Michaela Thompson

Someone doesn’t want the book to be written. Georgia Lee has been receiving increasingly threatening letters. The butler dies in what looks like an accident. Georgia Lee herself is pushed down a hillside. And the socialite’s errant son shows up, or has he been there all along?

 

A Temporary Ghost is the second of Michaela Thompson’s Georgia Lee Maxwell International Mysteries. Like its predecessor Magic Mirror, the reader gets both a mystery and a tour of the terrain, in this case Provence in southern France.

 

In addition to the Georgia Lee Maxwell mysteries, Thompson also wrote five other mystery novels. She grew up on the northwest Florida Gulf Coast. She worked as a newspaper reporter and freelance journalist, and she’s contributed short stories to a number of anthologies. She lives in New York City. 

 

Related:

 

Magic Mirror by Michaela Thompson.

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