"Do you believe in ghosts?"
I actually get that question considerably more often than most walking-around civilians. I understand the question, and no, I'm not ever going to give you an answer.
I write a series of mystery books about a woman who runs a guesthouse on the Jersey Shore that just happens to be haunted. So people—and I get why—want to know where I stand on the Casper-and-his-Friends question.
I don't answer because I don't want to annoy any of my readers. If I say I do think there are undead spirits inhabiting various structures around the world, the ones who think that's silly will think I'm silly. If I say no, the people who read the books for the ghosts could easily feel betrayed. So I'm staying mum on the Ghost Question, and by that I don't mean the movie with Patrick Swayze. Whoopi definitely earned her Oscar.
But in the latest Asperger's Mystery series (which I write with Jeff Cohen) novel, The Question of the Dead Mistress, the main character Samuel Hoenig, who has personality traits that some would say place him on the autism spectrum, has to answer the question, and he has a very quick answer.
No.
Samuel, whose mind deals with facts and that which is provable, refuses to admit to his brain the concept. People die, and that's it. Samuel has no definitive proof that anything else might be the case, so it's not an issue for him.
When a client walks into the office of Samuel's storefront business Questions Answered (it's all there in the business name) and asks if her husband is having an extramarital affair with a deceased woman, Samuel answers her question immediately, and without charge: No, he's not, because there's no such thing as a ghost.
But Samuel has a problem: His most trusted associate, Ms. Washburn, does believe, based on an experience she had as a teenager. So she wants to attack the question and answer it definitively for the woman who has ventured into the office with concerns about her husband and a spirit.
They arrive at what seems like a perfectly equitable solution: Janet (Ms. Washburn) will research the question and Samuel will work on some of the business' other files. Given Janet's intelligence and experience, that would work out just fine—until the husband in question ends up just as dead as the woman his wife suspected he was seeing on the side. And he has not died due to natural causes.
The Ghost Question never really leaves the story, but it is added to the question of the also-dead husband. Astute readers will note that the authors do not necessarily settle the existential issue, and that's intentional.
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"Is my husband having an affair with a dead woman?" For Samuel Hoenig, the proprietor of a unique agency called Questions Answered, the answer to this most recent question is simple. Since there's absolutely no evidence that apparitions exist, it would be impossible for Ginny Fontaine's husband to be having an affair with one.
But Samuel's associate, Janet Washburn, isn't so easily convinced.
Wrestling with his complicated feelings for Ms. Washburn, Samuel proposes that she take the lead on the question. As soon as her research begins, the husband in question ends up dead, leaving Janet and Samuel wondering if they stand a ghost of a chance at unraveling this twisted tale of danger and deceit.
Praise for the Asperger's Mysteries:
"Readers will delight in watching Copperman's literal-minded hero grapple not only with unpredictable and nuanced human thinking, but with logic from beyond the grave."
—Kirkus Reviews
E.J. Copperman and Jeff Cohen are the authors of The Question of the Dead Mistress, the fifth Asperger's Mystery novel. And no, they're not going to tell you what they think about ghosts. But whatever you believe, they agree with that
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