Ghost of a Chance [Mass Market Paperback]

Helen Chappell (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 8, 1998

On Maryland's salt-swept Eastern Shore, a woman reporter has a dilapidated old house, a dysfunctional family, and a talent for solving mysteries.  How does wisecracking, love-burned Hollis Ball find out so much about other people's secrets? Just ask the ghost at her side.

Once he was her husband--and not a very good one at that.  Now Sam Wescott is a ghost.  And what he lacks in respect for Hollis's privacy, he makes up in his ability to talk to the dead.  For Hollis, Sam's talent has never come in handier.  A vintage Cadillac has been resurrected from the muddy waters beneath a highway bridge, and in it are the bones of a woman.  Now a community of fishermen, crabbers, and local boys-turned-millionaires is being ripped apart by a mysterious death thirty years old.  And when another body is found in Chesapeake Bay, Hollis and Sam join forces: to catch a killer who is alive and all too well....

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The ghost of Sam Wescott, erstwhile husband of irreverent reporter/sleuth Hollis Ball, is an indispensable partner as she investigates a 30-year-old murder. Sam not only contributes an occasional chapter, but his pal from the Other Side, a prominent 19th-century American author known as "Ed," supplies essential information about a clue left by Renata Ringwood Clinton, whose skeleton turns up in a long-finned Cadillac forklifted from a deep creek. As in Chappell's excellent first outing, Dead Duck, the writing is unrelentingly sharp and funny ("no matter what it's like outside, once you walk into Toby's Bar and Grill it's always 4:00 a.m. in some dark night of the soul") and the characters, even those "in transition," are realistic. Renata's daughter Jennifer (star of Hopeless Hearts, the most-watched soap opera in all Maryland) and chicken tycoon Billy Chinaberry, "Prince of Pullets," are new characters who stand out among the bizarre yet believable denizens of "morally elastic" Beddoes Island.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From the Publisher

"This delightful combination of Topper meets The Thin Man brings a new twist to mystery fiction. Most enjoyable!"
--Sharyn McCrumb, author of If I'd Killed Him When I Met Him

"Hollis Ball is a spirited sleuth who takes on real spirits--old and new. Her relationship with Sam Wescott provides ghostly humor while her detecting skills uncover the ghastly details. I hope this series lasts for eternity."
--Penny Warner, author of Dead Body Language

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Dell (June 8, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0440225671
• ISBN-13: 978-0440225676
• Product Dimensions: 6.7 x 4 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,373,766 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Sam and Hollis search for clues in a 30year old mystery, July 7, 1998

By 

[e-mail] (Cambridge, MD) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Ghost of a Chance (Mass Market Paperback)

In the third of Helen Chappell's series, Watertown Gazette reporter Hollis Ball, a woman with a devout hatred for her editor and a devine penchant for solving murders, learns that the body of her childhood friend's mother has been found after 30 years in a watery grave. The bones of Renata Ringwood Clinton turned up during some repair work on the Calais bridge, still ensconsed in her trademark pink Cadillac.

Hollis' very ex-husband, Sam Westcott, is on hand to again help her hunt a killer, despite his "living impaired" state. As usual, Sam provides plenty of clues, initially from ghostly conversations with the victim, then some "expert" advice from a guest ghost, his drinking, buddy Ed (Edgar Allen Poe).

Suspects abound. Was it Renata's grieving husband? Her lover? Her former employer, the once and future chicken king? Certainly, her soap-opera queen daughter was too young to be a supect -- or was she? And who (or what?) was the ornamental hermit?

Chappell's keen sense of humor, the unique Eastern Shore setting, and a plot that soon involves another death, keep the reader turning pages. This is a "can't-put-it-downer!"

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Hollis and Sam are a great team, November 26, 2002

By 

Moe811 (New York USA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Ghost of a Chance (Mass Market Paperback)

Hollis is playing hooky from her job at a local newspaper, something she almost never does, when her ex husband (and ghost)Sam Westcott, shows up and tells her of the discovery of a submerged car off of the Calais Bridge. It happens to be on her way, so she goes to investigate. The car is an old Coupe de Ville and there is a skeleton inside. Most put it down to an accident. The body turns out to be one Renata Clinton, who divorced the most hated man on Beddoes Island over thirty years before. Her daughter, a famous soap star wants Hollis to investigate, and she reluctantly gets herself involved as another murder is committed and her own father is suspect.

The characters in this series are priceless. Sam the self appointed guardian ghost, his sponsor, Edgar Allan Poe, and who else would name a grumpy homocide detective Ormond Friendly? The story is as good as the characters, this series is alot of fun.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars GREAT BOOK. COULDN'T PUT IN DOWN, May 29, 2001

By 

Thomas J. Niedermeier (Thomaston, Connecticut USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Ghost of a Chance (Mass Market Paperback)

A REALLY GREAT BOOK. I COULDN'T PUT IT DOWN, AND WHEN I DID I HAD TO GET BACK TO IT IMMEDIATELY. THE CHARACTERS WERE FLAWLESS, AND WORKED GREAT TOGETHER. A MUST READ FOR ANY TYPE OF READER.