In her second novel, YOU SHOULDN’T BE HERE, Lauren Thoman pens another engaging mystery. Like her debut, I’LL STOP THE WORLD, it has a bit of paranormal time travel. However, in this story, the time traveler seems to be a ghost. As with all well-written mysteries, we don't understand exactly what's happening until the end. And even then, just like the perplexed characters in the book, we aren't completely sure.

Ten years ago, 16-year-old Angie had a best friend named Bas, short for Sebastián. She's been hearing strange sounds in the house she shares with her father --- a woman's voice --- but no one else seems to be able to hear it, and there's no female in the house. Is it a ghost? Angie buys occult paraphernalia to try to get to the bottom of this mystery. One night, after hearing a very disturbing conversation between her father and his employer, she and her father disappear. No one in East Henderson knows where they went or why.

Now, Madelyn Zhao wants to find out what happened to her cousin, Piper. Two years ago, Madelyn was supposed to visit her new-found relative in East Henderson so they finally could meet. But Piper stopped returning Madelyn's texts and wouldn't answer emails. Madelyn just let it go, assuming she had changed her mind about getting together with her much younger cousin.

"It’s everything one might want in a light mystery: an engaging story, a twisty plot, likable characters, a really bad guy, a cute dog, a touch of romance, and good friends."

But when she's contacted by an attorney who informs her that there might have been something nefarious about Piper’s disappearance, Madelyn feels she must investigate. Like Madelyn, Piper lost her mother and had no other family. So Madelyn gets a teaching job at the middle school in East Henderson and rents a house from Doug Raymond, the owner of most of the real estate in town and the man for whom Piper worked before her disappearance. He also happened to be Angie's father's employer.

From the prologue, we find out that Piper was killed because of something she learned about Raymond's company. We also know, because of an alternating narrative that takes us back to Angie's time, that something strange has happened to Angie, but we aren't sure what it is. And what we don't know is how it all will fit together, because we know with certainty who the bad guy is, the murderer who has killed with impunity for decades. But we don't know how he'll be caught.

Thoman's writing is fluid and concise, and the action moves the plot along at a breakneck pace. In fact, I read the book in one day; the characters were relatable and likable, and I wanted to find out what happened. While I cringed a bit when some of them decided to do something really dumb (like when the female star in a horror movie goes into the basement where you just know a killer with a knife is waiting), it's also a fair representation of real life as we all make poor decisions occasionally.

The ending is quite satisfying, and I suspect that I will remember YOU SHOULDN’T BE HERE for a while. The plot is just a bit different from the usual thriller fare with the ghostly voices that remain a mystery even after we find out what they are. It's a testament to Thoman's writing that this almost 400-page novel is such a quick read. It’s everything one might want in a light mystery: an engaging story, a twisty plot, likable characters, a really bad guy, a cute dog, a touch of romance, and good friends.