Helpful Score: 1
Deborah Grabien's haunted ballad mystery series is built, as you might guess, around old ballads. Each mystery creates a story behind an old song by involving musician/house restoration expert Ringan Laine and his girlfriend Penny in supernatural events. This one is from The Twa Sisters (most recently revived by singer Loreena McKennitt as "The Bonny Swans"). These are not cozies - there is a real sense of danger and foreboding to the story - but there's no gore and the violence is minimal. I like how Grabien only uses a kernel of the song to build the story instead of following it completely. Ringan is an interesting fellow although not the most sympathetic, but all the characters seem fully-realized. Nice sense of place and while you know what the end holds for the ghosts, you'll still be caught up in events. A reader new to the series could easily start with this one and not be confused, although there are a few references to the earlier books.
