The Other Side of Midnight

The dead don't walk among us, peering invisibly over our shoulders or watching us as we sleep. There are such things as hauntings certainly, but they are confined to certain spaces, tied to a place and often with a purpose, though they are in fact rare. The true dead, if you wish to speak with them, must be called. 

 "Tell Ellie Winter to find me." That was the last message psychic medium Gloria Sutter sent before she was murdered at one of her own seances. Ellie Winter is psychic, too. And though she saw her first ghost when she was seven, she finds lost objects, not people. And she certainly doesn't do seances. But she and Gloria were once friends, and Ellie can't let her murder go unsolved.

Set in London in 1925, this novel is more murder mystery than ghost story, although there are ghosts in it. Ellie, with her bobbed blond hair and psychic ability, is a fun character, as is James Rawley, the man who helps her track down Gloria's killer. Simone St. James always includes a little romance with her suspense which is why I love her novels so much. And this one is no exception. The romance between Ellie and James made me smile and sigh all at the same time.

An arm came around my shoulders and I was pulled against a hard familiar body. I smelled wet pavement and damp wool and James. My skin sang, even through the layers of clothing, and there was water on my cheeks. He swung me into the notch of a church doorway, out of the rain, my back against the brick.

"Come here," he said, and kissed me.

I'm glad I bought my own copy of The Other Side of Midnight instead of waiting to get one from the library, because this is one book I'll want to read again. (And again.) Oh, and for fans of St. James' earlier novel, An Inquiry Into Love and Death, Drew Merriken (the Scotland Yard Inspector from that novel) makes an appearance in this one, too, which was a lot of fun.

Happy Reading!