Ghost of a Chance

Part-human, part-otherworldly exorcist Karma Marx agrees to clear her oily human husband Spider’s haunted house in exchange for an uncontested divorce. At the house on Washington’s Olympic Peninsula, she finds a poltergeist cop named Adam who claims that he, rather than Spider, owns the house; a psychic, Savannah; a bunch of imps who keep turning up, and many other denizens—almost all of whom have a reason to hate Spider. When he’s found dead, suspects abound; thanks to a seal that Adam places on the house, everyone is trapped for 12 hours, during which Karma and Adam are determined to identify the killer. Marsh (as Katie McAlister, author of The Last of the Red-Hot Vampires ) throws in a bit of a twist at the end, but despite lots of noisy activity, the investigation often plods. (Feb.)