Seance Slaying

When a flamboyant psychic is murdered during a séance at historic Blackwood Mansion, bookshop owner Lila Hart must untangle a web of spiritual fraud, blackmail, and a decades-old conspiracy to prevent another killing. What begins as a simple request to find a rare spiritualism book quickly escalates when Lila discovers connections between her grandmother's final investigation and a 1952 death that was ruled natural but may have been murder. As Mockingbird Bay's historical society prepares for a spiritualism-themed fundraiser at the notorious Blackwood Mansion, Lila learns that the visiting psychic, Madame Zora, has been researching the same mysterious deaths that caught her grandmother's attention. When Madame Zora is fatally poisoned during her dramatic séance performance, Lila and Sheriff Cooper Reid uncover evidence of a seventy-year conspiracy involving fraudulent mediums, blackmail, and a series of carefully disguised murders. The investigation reveals that someone has been using spiritualist activities to exploit grieving families while eliminating anyone who threatens to expose the truth. As Lila delves deeper into the mansion's hidden passages and the town's spiritualist past, she discovers that the conspiracy extends far beyond historical fraud. A respected member of the community has been continuing the deadly tradition, using modern methods to silence witnesses and protect decades of buried secrets. With the killer growing desperate and the body count rising, Lila must solve both the current murder and the historical mystery before she becomes the next victim of someone who has perfected the art of making murder look natural. This is the fourth installment in the Bookmarked Mystery series.