A 1001 Midnights Mystery Review: RON GOULART – Ghosting.

A 1001 MIDNIGHTS Review by Julie Smith RON GOULART – Ghosting. Raven House, paperback original, 1988. A writer of very funny mysteries and science fiction, Goulart has said he likes to mix “murder, bug-eyed monsters, and satire.” Ghosting contains no BEM’s, but there is plenty of murder and satire. The hero, Barney Kains, is “a defrocked commercial illustrator who got dragooned into the comic book business” as a ghost writer for the comic strip “Poor Little Pearl.” It seems Archie Judd, the creator of the strip, is down with the flu for the moment. And since Archie’s granddaughter, Beth, is the first woman who’s been able to get Barney’s mind off his ex-wife, a top model whose picture is everywhere, the job is all the more enticing. But Barney begins to have his doubts about Beth when he learns that Archie’s tirades from his sickroom are on tape: There’s no one in Archie’s bed. What’s happened to the artist? Barney has no choice but to poke around and find out. This is a delightful…