The Cliff House Strangler

Nineteenth-century attorney Sarah Woolson is still trying to get her life together. Against her family's wishes, she opens her own San Francisco law firm, only to find that clients -paying clients, that is -are wary of allowing a woman to manage their legal affairs. Just when her patience, as well as her money, are about to run out, Sarah and her friend and former colleague, Robert Campbell, attend a séance at San Francisco's Cliff House. Making their way through the worst storm of the season, they arrive at their destination to find themselves in for much more than, in Robert's words, "silly parlor tricks." After a dramatic display of spirit apparitions, flying trumpets, and phantom music, Madame Olga Karpova -a renowned Russian clairvoyant -and her guests make a grisly discovery: One of the twelve people seated at the table has been brutally strangled.

Later, when two more séance participants are found slain, Sarah is pressed into defending the accused murderer. Working on her client's case, she quickly finds herself at the center of a complicated murder plot involving ghosts, gypsies, and City Hall, all the while facing off with Robert in a volatile legal battle and investigating her brother Frederick's shady political dealings. Hardly proper behavior for a nineteenth-century woman, but Sarah wouldn't have it any other way.