Lizzie Crane Mystery

In the summer of 1925, ambitious and beautiful New York jazz performer Lizzie Crane and her troupe land a plum job that could give them their big career break: a week-long engagement celebration for the daughter of a wealthy (and shady) industrialist to a Russian count. But, Lizzie barely has time to enjoy her good luck-which includes the amorous attentions of the heir to her employer's vast fortune-before the group's saxophonist is stabbed to death. The local police suspect her and her musician friends and place them under house arrest, where they're at the mercy of the very people, who have the most to lose if the murder is solved. As Lizzie delves into her slain colleague's mysterious past, she discovers secrets worth killing to protect and risks her own life in the process.

In October 1925, four New York City jazz musicians known as The Troubadours travel to the neo-Gothic Halcyon Castle near Gloucester, MA, home of occultist Duncan Fox, to perform a week-long series of entertainments. Halloween is Fox's fiftieth birthday and he's invited twelve family members and friends--including an astrologer, a tarot card reader, and a wizard--to celebrate with him. The activities at Halcyon Castle, however, prove to be anything but what its name suggests. On the first night a Ouija board predicts the death of Fox's longtime friend Natalie Talbot from a heroin overdose. Her husband insists she never used drugs and suspects foul play. Lizzie Crane, The Troubadours' beautiful and talented chanteuse, begins snooping into the unexplained death after local police place her and her colleagues under house arrest. She learns the deceased was a medium, who swindled many grieving people by pretending to communicate with their departed loved ones on the Other Side. Natalie Talbot also made enemies among some of the guests gathered at the castle. Soon the list of suspects grows to include the medium's lover, her cuckolded husband, and several others with vendettas to settle. Natalie's death isn't the only mystery at Halcyon. The castle also has eerie voices emanating from its walls, a resident ghost, peculiar blinking lights, and secret passageways. As Lizzie pursues her quest into the strange goings-on, she discovers a plot to reap vengeance--and risks her own life in the process.