Who You Gonna Call?

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Victoria Laurie’s “Ghost Hunter” series is for a new generation interested in the paranormal, for people more familiar with TV’s “Ghost Hunters” and “Most Haunted” rather than the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man and possessed card catalogs.

M.J. Holliday can trace her ancestors back to the famous “Doc” Holliday of America’s Old West… and she can talk to him, too. When M.J. (Mary Jane) was growing up in Valdosta, Georgia, she knew exactly when her mom finally succumbed to the cancer she’d been fighting for years. Her mom appeared to her while she and her best friend, Gilley Gillespie, were playing Barbies on Gilley’s back porch. Gilley knew even then that he was gay; M.J. knew, even before her mom came to her, looking healthy and at peace, that she could communicate with the spirit world. Both Gilley and M.J. had been branded as weird kids at their small school, so they stuck together and defended each other.

When Gilley the computer geek won a scholarship to M.I.T. in Boston, M.J. moved to New England with him, rather than stay in Valdosta where everyone – even her dad and her brother – looked at her with either pity or suspicion or both. M.J. worked odd jobs in Boston until one night, Gilley convinced her to do a “reading” for a classmate who had recently lost a family member. A new business was born: in the beginning, M.J. acted as a medium for people wishing to communicate with a deceased loved one, but eventually, Gilley came on board with all his techie knowledge and toys so that the two of them could do “ghost busts.” People would hire M.J. and Gilley if they had inherited a property that came with things that go bump in the night. They were hired to research and clear the grounds of a boarding school when new construction seemed to disturb old spirits. They cleared sites of murders and suicides, old hotels and hospitals. In one book, Ghouls Just Haunt to Have Fun, the two went on a TV show, talking with people about their possibly “possessed” objects, when a producer hoped to launch a show that combined ‘Antiques Roadshow’ and ‘America’s Most Haunted.’

Gilley researches the historical background of a job and monitors M.J.’s progress on a site, setting up electromagnetic sensors, night vision cameras, and all kinds of other new-fangled ghost-hunting technology. M.J. tries to connect with whatever lingering spirits are causing havoc, attempting to convince them to cross over to the next plane of existence. With particularly nasty spirits who have no intention of leaving, M.J. must find their ‘portal’ and nail it closed with strongly magnetized spikes. This containment system certainly requires a lot fewer special effects than 1984 in New York City, and there’s no need to worry about crossing the streams of your proton packs.

The “Ghost Hunter” books bring together the best of cozy mystery series and popular fascination with the paranormal. Just like any good cozy mystery series, author Victoria Laurie and her team of PR folks have come up with puns so bad they’re great as titles, beginning with What’s a Ghoul to Do? Mysteries usually fall into two main categories: either the main character(s) are professional police or detectives, or they aren’t. When the main characters aren’t police, this is more often the realm of the cozy mystery, but it can become implausible after a few books in the series, that this non-professional somehow ends up in the thick of all these murders. Many cozy mystery authors get around this by making their main character somehow related to a professional, perhaps the spouse or sister of a detective. Nevertheless, it gets to the point where you, as the reader, can’t believe how any more people could die in the town where this main character lives. Laurie has found several clever ways around this, making Gilley and M.J. professionals, but not police, giving them valid reasons to be in new places where murders may have taken place.

With Gilley and M.J.’s jobs, Laurie offers her readers contemporary characters and interesting settings, friendship with the occasional side dish of romance, some metaphysical ideas to chew on, and a few goosebumps along the way. Think of it as a grown-up ‘Scooby Doo’ where the ghosts are real, the technology is top-notch, and the good guys always get to the bottom of the mystery before the last page is turned. If you’re often glued to episodes of police procedurals or ghost hunting on your television, “tune in” to a series you can enjoy even if the lights go out.

When things go bump in the night, who you gonna call to bump right back? Call in Hobo and his team of bibliophiles to help you research right, and don’t get caught alone….