Title: A Ghostly Guardian
Author: H.P. Mallory
Date: 2023
Quote: "He's always resented me, ever since I married his father."
Philippa married late. Her husband had been married before, and left her with a stepson only four years younger than she. Only the extreme stress of being in prison for having "stolen," or reclaimed, a necklace does she start communicating with her husband's ghost. From there she progresses to eeting her husband regularly "in the dream realm" and hearng from at least one more ghost. Her husband's ghost tells her and his old friend, the police detective who locked her up, where to find a late amendment to his will specifying that the necklace goes to Philippa.
Inspector Stirling finds himself delivering this news to Philippa's stepson with unexpected pleasure. If he weren't a character in a series with a slow-building romance, he'd suspect he likes defending Philippa. And if Philippa weren't another character in the same series, she'd suspect that her eagerness to help Stirling solve the mystery of the "Poison Pen Letters" had something to do with her detailed consideration of his person, noticing particularly that he's a better-looking man than her husband was.
I don't find it credible. I can believe widows went to jail in Victorian London for having reclaimed their property from unpleasant connections, or that they were released because someone felt an impression that a desk might have a secret compartment, etc., etc. There were poison pen letters circulating ugly rumors, true and false. However, neither of those things produced a great stir, and even when crimes did produce a great stir I don't think it was enough to admit anyone in such a disagreeable position as a policeman, even a Chief Inspector, to the sort of society where Mallory imagines silly women fawning on Stirling.
But perhaps the lack of credibility makes it funnier., We are not actually in Victorian London. We are in some alternate universe with fashion and technology reminiscent of Victorian London. In other words, it's steampunk! Steampunk tends to be entertaining and, if you can forgive the ghosts, this novel qualifies.
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