Laura Garner I Ain’t Superstitious

I Ain't Superstitious

Laura Garner

Five Star, Dec 2004, $26.95, 248 pp.

ISBN: 1594140804

Madeline "Max" Maxwell recovers from the shock of losing her baby by working at Abneyville Shores Resort as a handyman. She also passes time studying to become a private sleuth via a correspondence course. The resort owner Adam Norcross hires Max as a sleuth though she remains unlicensed. He wants her to go undercover to learn whether a ghost or more likely a more mundane culprit is haunting the renovation of nineteenth century Ardmore Carriage which is being turned into a night club.

After being knocked into thorns by accident at a bash, Max walks over to Ardmore only to literally run into someone else seemingly checking the joint out. When she and Walt Drucker compare notes, she learns he is investigating her at the request of Adam. As they work together to uncover a human vandal or a mischievous ghost, they are attracted to one another.

I AIN'T SUPERSTITIOUS, the sequel to AIN'T NOBODY'S BUSINESS, is an enjoyable amateur sleuth tale starring a delightful protagonist struggling with getting on with her life. The story line uses physical slapstick humor to lessen its tension but that also takes away from a strong ghostly investigative story line. Max is a delight even if nothing seems to go right. This is one author that will garner more fans as this is a fun lighthearted cozy.

Harriet Klausner