All ex-truckstop waitress/new heiress Lizbet really wanted was a swimming pool. What she got was a skeleton, suspicious cops...and Charlie. While digging the hole for the pool, workmen discover a human skeleton. Suddenly Lizbet's backyard becomes the focus of the cops, the FBI, and the media. And if that isn't enough, thirty minutes later, Charlie, the skeleton's owner, shows up in ghost form dressed as a sexy, young hippie type, and asks Lizbet to help him find out who murdered him back in 1969. She decides, much to her peril, that it's her bounden duty to help the guy.
L.L. Thrasher lives outside of Portland, Oregon, with her husband. She has two adult children who live nearby and two cats who live with her.
Her mysteries, which were published in hardcover in the '90s and early 2000s, are available as Kindle ebooks. They are Charlie's Bones and Charlie's Web and the Zachariah Smith mysteries, Cat's- Paw, Inc. and Dogsbody, Inc.
In August of 2013, No Turning Back: Six Short Stories by L. L. Thrasher was released as a Kindle ebook. Two of the stories appeared in print previously. One of them ("Sacrifice") was nominated for the Edgar Award in 1999.
This was my "in the shower" and "cleaning up the basement" book. I don’t like stories with supernatural elements it puts my crap-detector into overload. Contrary to the normal, I really liked this story which has a charming, naive quality to it. Or perhaps it was just the excellent narration of Stephanie Brush. Who knows.
Lizbeth Lange has inherited a mansion and fortune from her older ex-husband who had decided to completely cut out his previous two wives and their children from his will. She decides to build a pool and that’s when things get weird. A skeleton is discovered, and suddenly Lizbeth finds she can see and talk to “Charlie” a former undercover agent who had been murdered and buried in her yard 30 years earlier, before she was born. The way the author handles the interaction between Charlie (not a ghost) and Lizbeth is good, setting the parameters of what he can and cannot do at levels that if not realistic, at least are plausible from a parallel universe standpoint.
This book will especially appeal to those of us who grew up in the sixties, particularly if you remember 1969 (I was just graduating from college) as the author nostalgically brings up many cultural and historical events from that year when Charlie had been killed. I liked the way Thrasher sets up the parameters of what Charlie can and cannot do and his integration into the story. Charmingly comedic and a good mystery.
I can't say I like the main character, but she's funny - especially as read on the Audible edition, with perfect comic timing. The paranormal side of the story is confusing and actually leaves you hanging without a good explanation but the mystery resolves so I can overlook that. I suspect I wouldn't like the explanation the author might've had in mind, anyway. Charlie's Bones will keep you guessing right up until the end.
I loved this mystery book! It kept my attention going. I really think that it was too short for me. I wish there were more chapters. I recommend this book to those that like mystery books.
I LOVED the story! The reason for the 4 stars is the lip smacking. The narrator drove me crazy with the lip smacking to the point I almost didn’t want to finish the book, but I had to know the ending! I will try to avoid books with this narrator in the future.
What a fun character Lizbet Lange is; feisty, insecure, sweet, intelligent. She has inherited a large fortune and house and isn’t quite sure what to do with it, or how to relate to people now.
When she decides she wants a swimming pool in her backyard, the construction digs up a 25-30 year-old skeleton. And she sees and talks with the ghost “Charlie Bilbo”. Before she stops to think she identifies the bones and when the police ask her how she knows, she can only fall back on “I’m Psychic”.
Join the fun as Lizbet works to find out how Charlie died and why his body was left in her backyard. 237
A new twist on ghost rules and a feisty woman made this an entertaining read. I enjoyed all the twists and turns the story took and liked how it all fit together by the end.