First published 2006
Penelope Thornton-McClure runs a bookshop, and she has just acquired something special: a complete collection of Edgar Allan Poe's works. The books come with whispers of mystery. Hidden somewhere in those pages lies a secret code that supposedly points to buried treasure. But Penelope discovers a deadly pattern. Every customer who purchases from this collection ends up dead. The treasure hunters are becoming corpses. Penelope needs help solving this lethal puzzle, and she turns to Jack Shepard, a ghost who worked as a private investigator when he was alive. Together, they must decode what lies within Poe's pages before more people die. The case forces Penelope to navigate between the world of the living and the dead, where old secrets refuse to stay buried.
Genres: mystery, fantasy, supernatural, adult-fiction, thriller, ghost-stories
Vibes: atmospheric, dark, eerie, fast-paced, mysterious, suspenseful
Tropes: amateur-sleuth, ghost-detective, hidden-secrets, unlikely-partnership
Setting: bookshop
391 pages · Hardcover · Wheeler Publishing
Content warnings: death, murder