A young woman stops at the grocery store after work, but she never makes it home—at least not all the way. She is stabbed to death in front of her building, her groceries strewn across the cold pavement. Upstairs her neighbor and popular ghost story author Gregory Craig lay dead as well, stabbed in his apartment. When Craig’s publisher is found murdered just days later, Detective Steve Carella has a deadly mystery on his hands, one unlike any he’s ever had before.
Searching for clues, Carella instead finds Craig’s girlfriend, a medium whose spooky predictions keep him guessing. When some leads take him to a “haunted” house on the New England shores, strange events turn even stranger…until, back in the city, he turns up the crucial evidence he needs to track down the killer.
A rare twist in Ed McBain’s 87th Precinct series, Ghosts weaves the haunting uneasiness of the supernatural thriller with a classic, tightly plotted police procedural. Stephen King hails Ghosts as “excellent. It’s a fine—and creepy—mystery, and a fine novel.”
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"Perhaps the best of McBain's mammoth 87th Precinct series of cop tales. He produced several dozen of them, or so it seems, from the early 1950s until his death. This one is unique as it has a supernatural bent, and the closing chapters are quite gripping."
— Alex (4 out of 5 stars)
" Not one of his best (though the Stephen King endorsement on the back should have given that away early) mystery-wise, as you can see the who and why fairly early on, but he definitely writes a ghostly scene better than the afore-mentioned King. "
— Doreen, 10/15/2013" Classic McBain. I'm surprised it is not as well known as many others. "
— John, 10/8/2013" Dated story wherein Detective Steve Carella sees ghosts while investigating the muurder of a writer of the supernatural. "
— Beverly, 7/21/2013" I love these!! "
— Sandi, 7/13/2013" An author who penned a bestselling ghost story is murdered. Excellent. "
— Kitty, 6/28/2013" Standard older police procedural. Interesting, but a little far fetched for McBain. "
— Gizzard, 5/7/2013" All of the 87th Precinct stories are easy to consume cop stories and certainly enjoyable for what they are. Ghosts was not different, with the slight exception of being on the short side (about 200 pages) making it an even faster (though not exactly memorable) read. "
— Brian, 2/16/2013" Wonderfully written. Dark and edgy and funny and literary, all at the same time. "
— John, 12/15/2012Ed McBain is the most well known pseudonym of Evan Hunter (1926–2005), the author of over eighty novels and several famous screenplays. He is a recipient of the Mystery Writers of America’s Grand Master Award and the Diamond Dagger Award from the British Crime Writers Association. His books have sold more than one hundred million copies, ranging from the more than fifty titles in the 87th Precinct series to the bestselling novels written under his own name. McBain also wrote the screenplay for Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds.
Dick Hill, named a Golden Voice by AudioFile magazine, is one of the most awarded narrators in the business, having earned several Audie Awards and thirty-four AudioFile Earphones Awards. In addition to narrating, he has both acted in and written for the theater.