LIFE AFTER THEFT

“There’s something about having a fight with a ghost that makes you paranoid in the morning.”

On his first day at an exclusive private high school in Santa Monica, freshman Jeff Clayson discovers that he is being stalked by the ghost of a former student who drowned two years earlier. Jeff can see and hear Kimberlee Schaffer loud and clear, but to everyone else she is invisible. Apart from disappearing through walls when it suits her, she behaves like any other kleptomaniac teenage brat. Kimberlee has a mission for Jeff. She wants him to help her atone for her past sins so that she can move on to the place with bright lights where she believes the peaceful dead end up. It takes Jeff a while to realize what a bizarre drama he has let himself get involved in. Finding the love of his dreams, who, it turns out, has played a significant role in Kimberlee’s criminal past, only complicates matters further. In a refreshing departure from her plant-based paranormal-romance series (Destined, 2012, etc.), Pike develops the pleasantly fractious relationship between Jeff and Kimberlee in Jeff’s earthy, humorous first-person as he only initially reluctantly takes the high road to help her.

Aside from its heavenly premise, this brisk, down-to-earth thriller should appeal equally to male and female readers.