GRANDGHOST

A children's book illustrator copes with disappointment by investigating a murder.

Beverly Vernon is distressed by a call from her agent saying that her latest book, The Six Swans, is too grisly to sell. Bev's bought her new home in rural Florida with money her late husband left her, but she depends on royalties, along with her Social Security check, to pay for upkeep. To distract herself from her woes, she begins to paint the portrait of a fictional child, imagining her as the granddaughter she never had. Then she makes a discovery in her yard: a small skeleton that the police confirm belongs to a child. Bev begins to doubt her own senses when her painting begins to change on its own. The lavender dress is suddenly a flowered frock. The child's sweet smile is now a fierce scowl. Uncertain of the connection between the child on the canvas and the child in the garden, she talks to her two adult daughters, Maurie and Cassie, about her growing unease. The roof falls in when the police, instead of investigating the obvious crime, haul Bev in for an open-ended psychiatric evaluation based on a complaint from her nosy neighbor about Bev's increasing willingness to entertain supernatural explanations of what she sees with her own eyes. How can Bev find justice for the young victim if she's going to be locked in a psych ward until she renounces her quest?

Without much puzzle and with a narrative that's a crazy quilt of first-person and third-person contributions from the heroine and both her daughters, Springer (The Oddling Prince, 2018, etc.) presents a crime novel more likely to tempt fantasy fans than mystery buffs.