Sculptor Jane Constant an artist-in-residence at Green Gardens, an ancient seaside mansion turned artist’s colony, faces murder in the midst of this summer’s crop of eccentrics and other creative types
Watch out for trouble on Maryland’s Eastern Shore when Hollis Ball and her ghostly ex, Sam Wescott are on the case! Hollis’ waterman brother Robbie, desperate to support his growing family through a hard winter, has headed down the Bay to isolated Shellpile Island, where he hopes to make money oystering with island local, Sluggo Fotney, a slick operator with a slippery moral sensibility.
Hollis Ball is back, this time covering the Decoy Jamboree, still smouldering over the light sentence Judge Fish gave a wife-murderer. Then someone bashes Fish on the head with an antique decoy. Hollis is pretty sure it's not suspect #1, so naturally she decides to solve the murder herself, with the help of her dead ex-husband, of course, the charming ghostly Sam.
Newspaper reporter Hollis Ball is shocked to find herself shedding a tear when she learns her ex-husband, Sam Wescott, was killed in a boating accident. She is even more shocked when Sam's ghost shows up, asking her to find out who murdered him. LiFE Award from Literature for the Environment.