R.W. Wallace writes in most genres, though she tends to end up in mystery more often than not. Dead bodies keep popping up all over the place whenever she sits down in front of her keyboard.

The stories mostly take place in Norway or France; the country she was born in and the one that has been her home for two decades. Don't ask her why she writes in English – she won't have a sensible answer for you.

Her ongoing Ghost Detective short story series appears in Pulphouse Magazine, starting in issue #9. Her stories have also been published in Kristine Kathryn Rusch's Holiday Spectacular, in Dean Wesley Smith's Cave Creek series, and in M.L. Buchman's Thrill Ride magazine.

Unfinished Business by R.W. Wallace

When someone dies with unfinished business, their souls linger until they find closure.

A rather tall order when the ghost is stuck within the confines of the cemetery, with minimal means to affect the world of the living.

Robert and Clothilde know their way around the limitations, though. While waiting for their own release, they help the other ghosts deal with their unfinished business and find peace.

Unfinished Business is a special edition collection of short stories in the Ghost Detective series, including the titles Just Desserts, Family Bonds, Common Ground, Till Death, Family History, Heritage, New Beginnings, Far From Home, and Severed Ties.

CURATOR'S NOTE

R.W. Wallace is known for writing about ghosts. This volume of short stories is from her ghost detective series. Many of these stories first appeared in Pulphouse. But this volume is special: R.W. created it for a Kickstarter years ago, and outside of that, it has only had limited availability. So this is as exclusive as an ebook can get…without really being exclusive. – Kristine Kathryn Rusch

 

REVIEWS

  • "Great writing and some of the most innovative plotting I have seen in a long time."

    – Dean Wesley Smith, USA Today bestselling author and editor of Pulphouse Magazine

  • "This is a most unusual detective story, filled with memorable characters, both dead and alive. It reminds me of Peter S. Beagle's early novel A Fine and Private Place, which is high praise indeed."

    – Tangent Online about Just Desserts

  • "The ghosts are fully developed characters, as are the living people in the story. The plot is clever and involving, and the sense of time and place is richly conveyed."

    – Tangent Online about Family History
 

BOOK PREVIEW

Excerpt

We hear the screams as soon as the group exits the church.

"I think this one's for you, Robert," Clothilde says. She's sitting on top of her tombstone, the plainest slab of stone in the whole graveyard, with only her first name and a date of death. No birthday, no last name, no citation or drawings of angels. She's one of the greatest mysteries this place has, but she won't let me investigate. Every attempt I've made to ask her about her life has been rebuffed, sometimes nicely, sometimes not so much. She's been dead for twenty-five years, but she'll always be a teenager at heart.

Today she's wearing high-waisted jeans that stop just above her ankle and a white top that would have shown the straps of her bra if she'd been wearing one. Her dangling feet are covered in a pair of Converse, worn on the heel and one of the laces torn on her right foot. There's no telling the color—the dead only wear shades of gray.

We haven't had many new arrivals lately. The only people to die were old ladies with no reason to hang around after the funeral. When you've known for years that your time is almost up, you get your shit together and make sure there are no loose ends.

It's those of us who are taken by surprise who linger.

Of course, it's a good thing when someone goes straight to the afterlife. None of us wish suffering on another human being—or human ghost in this case—but it does get a little dull at times. There's only so much you can do to occupy your time when you're stuck within the confines of your cemetery, and it's the middle of winter so the number of visitors is at a minimum.

Today, though, we have a new arrival.

It's not easy coming to grips with being dead when you didn't expect it, didn't see it coming. It's a bit of a shock, to put it mildly.

Personally, I pounded on my casket for a week before realizing my fists didn't have any effect on the sturdy wood. Nor did they make any sound. My voice didn't echo like it should have.

Only when I calmed down—if I can really call it that—did I look around in the small space I occupied. And realize I was lying next to my own dead body.

I was laid out on white sheets, wearing my next best suit—the best one would be full of holes to match the ones on my body—my hands folded over my stomach and my expression relaxed in a way I'd never seen it before.

I'm not particularly bright, so it took me another day to accept the fact that I was dead and had apparently become a ghost.

That's when the coffin released me. The cemetery has been my home ever since.

As the funeral procession advances down the path from the church, my fellow ghosts gather next to me. We always wait for the new arrivals by the hole in the ground that will be their last resting place. We could have listened in at the church door and followed the procession, but whenever a ghost touches a human, there can be a form of interaction, and we don't want to freak out the bereaved any more than they already are.

So we observe the funerals from behind the priest, in the trees, from the top of the tombs, watch the coffin lowered into the ground, and settle in to wait to see if a new companion would join us.

There isn't really any doubt about this one being a keeper.

The screams are so loud it would have been impossible for us to hear each other speak. The banging on the coffin is strong, panicked, and unrelenting. I can't make out any words, only pure, unadulterated panic.

I want to go over and calm her down, tell her it's going to be okay.

But as long as she hasn't been released from the coffin, there's nothing I can do. She won't hear me.

And it's not going to be okay.

She's dead and she wasn't ready.