The Family Skeleton mystery series by Leigh Perry keeps getting better and better! You'd think that it might get hard to find believable new ways to get a living skeleton out into the world where he can help his best friend solve murders, but the author keeps making it happen. In The Skeleton Makes a Friend, the rustic lakeside cabin that Georgia has rented while she's working at a college summer program is the perfect place for her daughter, Madison, and her skeleton friend, Sid, to enjoy the sun. If someone happens to wander by while they're swimming he can just sink to the bottom of the lake until the coast is clear.
Things get more complicated when a teenage girl comes to the cabin looking for Sid, who she met through an online game. A member of their group has gone missing and she wants Sid's help finding him, but of course it's impossible for him to meet up with her in real life. So Georgia helps her in person while Sid helps online. I loved this one. It kept me guessing until the very end.
Seances are for Suckers by Tamara Berry is the first in a new series and I immediately liked the heroine, Eleanor Wilde. She removes troublesome spirits and manifestations from the homes of her clients by putting on a supernatural (and also completely bogus) show while also quietly removing the source of the disturbance. Usually it's mice in the walls. Holding fake seances isn't the most honest work, but she's doing what she has to to provide her sister with needed medical care.
Nicholas Hartford approaches her to deal with a ghost at his family's ancestral estate, knowing full well that Eleanor's abilities are no more real than Xavier, the family ghost. His mother, on the other hand, believes in both. Eleanor is completely willing to do her thing for the ridiculous amount of cash that Nicholas is willing to pay, but there's something sinister happening at the estate and someone doesn't want her to succeed.
I highly recommend this one, especially if you enjoyed The White Magic Five and Dime series by Steve Hockensmith and Lisa Falco.
Disclosure -- The publishers provided me with ARCs.
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