HOW TO MARRY A GHOST

Ghostwriter Lee Bartholomew (How to Seduce a Ghost, 2005) jumps the pond for the sake of family, career and maybe something special.

Lee has ever so many reasons to come out to the Hamptons. Even though Philip Abernathy’s mansion is north of Montauk Highway, his portfolio is still well-enough endowed for Lee to call him “the Phillionaire,” although never, of course, to his gentle, benevolent face. Phil loves Lee’s mother enough to stage an elaborate commitment ceremony even though she remains married to Lee’s father. So Lee agrees to be her mother’s maid of honor, not only to recuperate from her own broken romance with pudgy, dependable Tommy Kennedy, but to compete with fellow ghost Bettina Pleshette for the prize of writing rock legend and Hampton neighbor Shotgun Marriott’s bio, and to shore up her often-rocky relationship with her mother. The murders of Marriott’s son Sean, and later of the scheming Bettina, land Lee her prized contract, but Shotgun turns out to be more complicated than she thought, a true English gentlemen despite his wild stage presence. So as Lee struggles to help her newfound American friends—especially Phil’s younger son Rufus and his eccentric inamorata, Franny Cook—escape the net of suspicion cast by sinister detective Evan Morrison, she finds her relationship with Shotgun growing more personal than professional.

Chick-lit trappings expand a pretty good puzzle beyond the comfort zone.