Jake’s schoolgirl crush, Dennis Kim, has been sending mixed signals and her new squeeze, Detective Ben Rubin never seems to have enough time for her and is about to become her new step-brother. All-in-all, Jake’s life is pretty good, she and her mother have a good relationship and she has a close group in the ghosts that will help her out whenever she needs.

At the opening reception for the conference a leprechaun serves the head table, which includes the US Senator from New York, Charlie Fione, aging Hollywood starlet Holly Halligan and cat burglar Rickie Romero, a pitcher of green beer. After one sip, Holly and Charlie are dead on the floor, contorted from apparent cyanide poisoning. Rickie, after a bit of over-acting announces, he didn’t take a sip because he is an alcoholic.

The police immediately try to determine if all three were targets, or if one of two of three were innocent bystanders. Jake and her ghosts, however, know that things are rarely as they appear and begin to do some investigating on their own, tracking relationships back almost sixty years, trying to untangle all the different relationships before the murderer catches up with them.

Death Never Takes a Holiday is a light, chatty, mystery. Jake and her friends will draw the reader into their cozy circle and make them feel they are part of the ghost world. The details Noreen Wald uses to depict the Upper East Side bring this eclectic neighborhood to life. Jake and her mother have a very close relationship and they each have friends their own age, but everyone watches out for everyone else.

The mystery has many avenues and several possible outcomes. When it is solved, it is a bit disappointing, given all the possibilities. However, Death Never Takes a Holiday is a light, breezy mystery about people who love writing mysteries that people who love reading them will thoroughly enjoy.

--Jennifer Monahan Winberry