Final Curtain

This charming mystery/ghost story, smartly plotted and deftly told, will delight fans of Ballard ( The Widow's Woods ) and win her many new ones. Back in 1936, a young actress named Dahlia Brown spent the summer with a drama troupe at the Plumb-Nelly Tavern in Fiddler's Glen, N.C., and came to a tragic end: her body was found in a ravine, the death attributed to a fall. Now, some 50 years later, her grand-niece, Ginger Cameron, has returned to the Plumb-Nelly at the insistence of Grandma Kate, Dahlia's sister, who has become convinced that the young woman was murdered and, nearing the end of her own life, desperately wants the case resolved. Though the trail is old and hard to follow, Ginger quickly discovers an ally in her investigation as the red-haired apparition of Dahlia Brown returns again and again to steer her in the right direction. Also on hand to lend support are love interest Rob Quillian, the tavern's piano player, and Eugenia Tyler Stafford-Smith, one of the inn's livelier senior residents. The closer Ginger gets to the truth, the more dangerous her quest becomes, and before long she herself is being pursued. Is the person responsible for Dahlia Brown's untimely death still alive--or just another specter out to keep an old secret buried for good? Readers will enjoy finding out. (June)