Jailhouse Glock: A Dead Sister Talking Mystery

In Lipperman’s diverting second Dead Sister Talking mystery (after 2013’s Heard It Through the Grapevine), rookie cop Madelyn “Maddy” Castillo of Vineyard, Tex., enlists her sisters’ help when Gino Bernardi, a prisoner in the town jail, is killed under her watch, and with her gun. While three of them, Lainey, Kate, and Deena, are alive and well, the fourth, Tessa, is a wisecracking ghost visiting from the afterlife. Tessa is uniquely positioned to help Maddy clear her name, though she mostly uses her supernatural powers to make sassy comments without being heard. The book is playful rather than suspenseful, with the sisters as interested in cute guys, avoiding being detected by Maddy’s policeman peers, and investigating the fidelity of Deena’s husband, Mike, as they are in Gino’s links to Vineyard’s newly arrived crime lords. Lipperman’s blend of a girls-club feel and smalltown sleuthing makes for an attractive, lighthearted package. Agent: Christine Witthohn, Book Cents Literary Agency. (May)