Where There’s Smoke . . . (A Haunted Paint Store Mystery)
Paranormal Cozy Mystery
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Severn House
Publication date ‏ : ‎ August 4, 2026
Setting – New Jersey
Print length ‏ : ‎ 256 pages
Hardcover

Synopsis

Paint store owner Laura Meehan must prove her amateur sleuthing skills (again!) when her small town’s public library starts burning in this installment of the Haunted Paint Store cozy mystery series.

Don’t mess with a paint store owner’s safe haven!

Laura Meehan has her hands full with her paint store, but also with another case (that she will definitely leave to the police to solve)! The Sea Breeze Public Library is burning and it’s clear from the beginning that it must be arson.

Who would want to burn a library down and why? Was it a group of moms protesting what they see as inappropriate book content? Maybe it was someone who didn’t like a title they lent? Or is there something more alarming going on?

As a library volunteer, Laura simply has to find out, and together with her IT-savvy husband Roy and her ex-detective father’s ghost (real or imagined still yet to be determined), she stumbles upon a lot of obstacles on her quest to find the truth—and maybe even an arsonist who might strike again!

A light-hearted cozy mystery with a paranormal twist and Copperman’s signature wit, humor, and zaniness. Perfect for fans of Copperman’s Haunted Guesthouse Mysteries and Cleo Coyle’s Haunted Bookshop Mysteries, as well as funny and cozy mysteries by Janet Evanovich, Elle Cosimano, and Amanda Flower.

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Guest Post

Amos Meehan

Where There’s Smoke..

By E.J. Copperman

I suppose I’ll always think of myself as a cop. I was a detective sergeant for the Atlantic City Police Department for 20 years, and put in my papers the day my pension had fully vested. It’s not that I hated being a police officer; I didn’t. But I was tired of the violence and the crime and the injustices I saw pretty much everywhere I was going, so when I could, I left. But the instincts are still there, and I act upon them every once in a while.

Like when my daughter decides to start investigating a crime, something she should not be doing. But go tell your children what they should and should not do and see how that works out.

When I left the job I bought Breezeway Paint and Wallpaper from Sy Cohen, who had owned the store for 40 years and didn’t want to see it become a parking lot. I had taken some courses in college about design, so I found the business interesting, and I had a good sense of color, so at least I could be conversant with the painting contractors who came into the store every day. I owned the store for more than 20 years.

And then I died.

Yup. You read that right. Cancer of the pancreas, a part of me I didn’t even know I had. Luck of the draw. It didn’t take long to kill me, so I stopped being alive. But that wasn’t the weird part.

From the hospital bed I remember vaguely I found myself immediately back in the store, in the back room where I used to do the accounting and make my orders for stock. But it wasn’t like before. When I tried to move the chair so I could sit down, my hand went right through it as if it wasn’t even there. The same was true when I decided to use the computer to figure out what was going on, and my hand went through the surface of the desk.

Worst of all, I couldn’t open the mini fridge to get the bottle of beer I knew was in there. Because with all that was going on, I felt that a drink wouldn’t hurt, but no. I touch it.

It took a few days of staying there and finding my limits – I was unable, somehow, to leave the store – before I came to the conclusion that I was a ghost. That hits you hard. It wasn’t what I had expected. No clouds, no harps, no nothing. Just back in my place of business and incapable of doing business at all. I couldn’t even put my feet on the floor and walk. I was just kind of floating, and if I thought of somewhere to walk to and leaned in that direction, somehow I got there. That one still confuses me. I don’t know how many times I reached for the phone to call Laura, my daughter. And my hand went through it every time.

This didn’t seem like a great deal for me.

Eventually, and I have no idea how much time had gone by, I heard the back door being unlocked, and when I pointed myself that way, saw Laura walking in with the keys in her hand. I knew I had left the deed to the building in a safe deposit box and willed it to her, but she had been living out of state since she’d gotten married and I didn’t expect her back at the store except to sell it or something.

Turned out she wanted to keep it, had quit her job, and moved her husband up to New Jersey so she could run the place. I wasn’t crazy about the idea because she didn’t know anything about business, but then, neither had I when I bought it from Sy.

But the best part was that she could talk to me.

It turned out (and I didn’t know this because I’d been alone in the store since I’d died) no one else could see or hear me, but my daughter could. But she wasn’t as glad to see me as I was to see her. She didn’t think I was real. She thought she’d gone crazy. She even started seeing a shrink because she was having conversations with her dead father.

It was a little insulting, to tell the truth.

We finally managed to establish a sort of understanding: Laura would continue to believe I was a hallucination, and I would give her some advice on running the store, which she mostly ignored. I understood. You’ve got to do things your own way. But a gardening section in a paint store frequented mostly by painting contractors? Not my idea of a great business plan.

I gave her some other advice when the local library was the target of an arsonist. She doesn’t trust the detective (yes, we have only one) on the Sea Breeze police force, but I think there’s more to him that meets the eye. Still, Laura was determined to find out who the torch was in the library, so I gave her the benefit of my years of experience with the cops.

Occasionally, she listens to me. More often I float in the store at night and wonder how she’s screwing the investigation up.

I’d say, “Its’ a living,” but, you know…

About the Author

E.J. Copperman is a figment of someone’s imagination. Sometimes E.J. writes as Jeff Cohen. Where There’s Smoke is his 36th published mystery. But he says he doesn’t write mysteries; he writes comedies that have a mystery in them. It’s up to you to decide if that’s true.

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