Elizabeth Hunter was one of the keynote speakers at Emerald City Writers Conference a couple weeks ago. I posted previously a little about her speech, which I enjoyed, but now I’m going to review the free book we all got from her (yay, free book!). A Bogie in the Boat is the second in a series that’s not really a romance, thought there is a romance in it. (I’m still including it here because Hunter does write romance, too.) Linx is a young urban artist in the LA area (she does large murals and got in trouble in the past for graffiti). She also is a medium and has one ghost named Frank attached to her, a detective who was killed on the job in the 1950s. Her mom and grandma (nan) are both also mediums. Otherwise everything’s normal. So that’s the basic world setup.

In this book, a neighbor discovers a dead body and comes to tell Linx’s nan about it, but she’s out so Linx herself goes to see the body and call the police. This is how she ends up with another ghost attached to her, something that hasn’t happened before. It’s always just been Frank. She doesn’t particularly want this new ghost, who doesn’t remember how he died, so now she has to help solve his murder. Enter (the living) Detective Lee, who turns out to be a very attractive Korean-American guy with impressive arms. Intrigue and mild romance ensue.

I should mention that Linx’s best friend is Raul, whose grandmother is Haitian if I remember correctly. Hunter was brought to the conference this year (theme: diversity) because her books are full of people of color, just like they should be when they’re set in LA. Of course, this isn’t an issue book by any means—it’s just a fun little novella about a crime-solving medium/artist in a realistic setting.

I enjoyed it and will be looking for Hunter’s other books.