A request from the ghost of a missing woman at a séance draws Detective Mallory Atkinson and Dr. Duncan Gray into an investigation of her possible murder--and whoever might have known about it.
In addition to lending his forensic knowledge to criminal investigations, Duncan inherited his family's undertaking business. So when, at the beginning of An Ordinary Sort of Evil by Kelley Armstrong (Death at a Highland Wedding; Disturbing the Dead), he and assistant Mallory, who's actually a time-traveling detective from the 21st century, are summoned late at night to the house of a wealthy client, they expect the cause to be a death in the family. Instead, they discover that Lady Adler hosted a séance at which a ghost allegedly declared herself to be a recently missing maid who insisted that Duncan investigate her murder. Duncan and Mallory agree to take the case despite suspecting the maid simply walked off the job, but as their investigation unfolds, they discover a possible link between the missing woman and another death. Since neither of them believes in ghosts, they come to the conclusion that if the maid was murdered, someone involved in faking the séance must have known about the crime.
In this fifth Rip Through Time mystery, Armstrong once again combines a twisty puzzle with an appealing cast of characters and a well-researched Victorian setting. Fans will be as excited to follow developments in the personal relationships of the recurring characters as to solve the crime. --Kristen Allen-Vogel, information services librarian at Dayton Metro Library