The Book of Illumination A Novel from the Ghost Files

by Winkowski, Mary Ann; Foley, Maureen

• ISBN13: 9780307452443
• ISBN10: 0307452441
• Edition: Original
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2009-10-06
• Publisher: Crown

Summary

The criminal underworld meets the spiritual otherworld in this thrilling debut collaboration between the inspiration for television'sThe Ghost Whispererand an award-winning writer/director. Anza O'Malley is in most ways a typical single mom. She lives a happy, busy life with her five-year-old son in Cambridge, Massachusetts, juggling the joys and challenges of life as a doting parent and a freelance bookbinder. But there is more to Anza than meets the "ungifted" eye: she can see and speak with ghosts. Although she's been solving cold cases for the police for years, Anza has been hoping to focus her energies on her son and her bookbinding career. But when an exquisite and priceless illuminated manuscript is stolen from the Boston Athenaeum, and when its desecration spurs the appearance of some very unhappy spirits, Anza can neither look nor walk away. With an unlikely trio of ghosts by her sidea charming butler and two medieval monksAnza leads us on an urgent journey through Boston's winding, cobbled streets to uncover a trail of deceit, danger, and ghoulish intrigue.

Author Biography

MARY ANN WINKOWSKI is the author of When Ghosts Speak. She is a paranormal investigator who has collaborated closely with several federal agencies and is the high-profile consultant for the CBS series The Ghost Whisperer. Visit her online at www.maryannwinkowski.com.

MAUREEN FOLEY is the acclaimed writer, producer, and director of the films American Wake and the award-winning Home Before Dark. Visit her online at www.hazelwoodfilms.com.

Excerpts

I should not have answered the phone.

But that's one more thing they fail to mention in those books you buy to try to prepare for parenthood. What the books should say is this: unless your child is in sight or within shouting distance, you will never again be comfortable letting a phone ring.

My five-year-old, Henry, was spending the weekend with his father, Declan; his stepmother, Kelly; and his two half sisters, Delia and Nell. Kelly's brother has a cottage on Lake Sunapee, and since it was Columbus Day weekend, which happened to fall very early this year, they'd all set off on Friday for three days of boating and campfires.

"Anza? It's Nat."

"Oh, hi!"

My friend Natalie was everything I wasn't: cool, willowy, able to get through life with a few faultlessly chosen pieces of clothing—one cashmere sweater, one black pencil skirt, one perfect pair of jeans. The jewelry she made was just like her wardrobe, spare and tasteful. She was also a secret smoker with somewhat unfortunate taste in men.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

"Nothing." I had just settled down with a glass of Sancerre and a DVD.

"Nothing?"

"Well, I was just about to fire up the third season of24."

"Oh!" She sounded a little too enthusiastic. With anyone else, I'd wonder if they were angling for an invitation. But Nat
didn't need one, any more than I needed to call before showing up at her place or her grandmother's. Pasquina, Nat's grandmother, had grown up with my nona in Palermo. I'd appeased Nona's early fears about my living alone in Boston by spending every Sunday with her childhood friend and the dozens of relatives and hangers- on who floated in and out of three family apartments in the same building in Boston's Italian North End.

I could hear many of these relatives in the background right now. Maybe Nat needed out.

"You want to come over?"

"No, no, I can't, but . . . listen. You remember Sylvia Cremaldi?"

At the mention of the name, I recalled Sylvia's pale and worried face, the face of someone who grew up hearing nothing but "No!"

"I think so."

"She was ahead of us."

We'd attended the North Bennet Street School, where Nat got her training in jewelry making and I learned the deeply rewarding yet highly impractical and not very lucrative trade of bookbinding. Well, I had to do something. Books seemed . . . logical. I'd just spent four years as an En glish major, and reading was what I did. Reading is what I would still be doing, if I could pay my rent by lying on the couch with a good novel.

"She did that folio of Danish woodcuts," Nat went on.

"Yeah, I remember."

She paused, possibly distracted by what sounded like a platter hitting the floor, followed by lots of yelling.

"She got a job at the Athenaeum."

The Boston Athenaeum was one of the oldest private lending libraries in America. It was located in a jewel of a building on Beacon Hill.

What I said was, "Really? That's fantastic."

What I thought was,I'd kill to get a job there! How come she got it?

To which I answered myself,She stopped waiting for the people conducting the door- to- door search for bookbinders specializing in bookcalf and marbled boards. She went looking for a job, and when she found that one, she applied.

"Well," Nat said, "they seem to be having a little problem."

"What kind of problem?"

"Your kind."

I knew it. Nat had dropped her voice to a whisper, maintaining the illusion that this was just between us— that is, if you didn't count all the relatives who were probably standing around the phone: Pasquina and Nat's aunt, Marcella, and of course Camille, and probably Nat's brother, Franco.

"Would you just . . . talk to her? She's kind of freaked out."

I let out a beleaguered sigh. I really didn't want to get involved in this. I to

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Excerpted from The Book of Illumination: A Novel from the Ghost Files by Mary Ann Winkowski, Maureen Foley
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