Living Spectres

Philadelphia, 1924

It’s been three months since crime reporter Poppy Thornton was left to die in an abandoned warehouse by her cousin Stacy, chief suspect in a high society murder. Rescued by the quick thinking of Chesterton Holte — her “gentleman haunt” — and Police Inspector J.B. Loring, Poppy is determined to get the real story and see justice done. But Stacy has fled Philadelphia with the widow of the man he is accused of murdering, and now an international manhunt is on for the suspected conspirators. As that search continues, Poppy, Holte, and Loring have a new mystery: the disappearance of GAD Pearce, 18 year-old heir to the Pearce fortune, who has vanished while travelling through Eastern Europe. The suspects range from the young man’s jealous siblings to a mysterious cult of Armenian refugees.

Once again Holte uses his ghostly powers to uncover answers and pass on what he learns to Poppy — who must then alert Loring without revealing her otherworldly source.

Is GAD still alive? Can Poppy keep her job despite social convention, the disdain of her male colleagues, and the dangerous attraction she feels to Loring? Will the authorities succeed in tracking Stacy down? What’s really going on behind the closed doors of the politicians and bankers who run the city and the state?

And as the search for truth takes Poppy and Holte deeper into a forest of dark secrets and official corruption, who will die next?