Hot co-tenant-almost-boyfriend Brad, a crime scene cleaner, promises to fix everything & find new quarters while Presley goes off to breakfast.   When she picks her mother up at her mother’s residential facility, Presley is surprised to see her mother with another resident, Stephen Ellington.  Over breakfast, Stephen’s son Jonathan joins them and asks Presley to organize an event for his company in the famous Winchester Mystery House where Ellington plans to make the widow Sarah Winchester appear to highlight his new 4-D computer and show off his new technology to some movie star bigwigs. 

Presley is more than a little put off by the younger Ellington, but she needs the business and this party means a lot to her mother. While Jonathan’s trophy wife does everything she can to cheese up the event, Presley is pretty happy with things until the Widow Winchester appears and accuses Ellington of infidelity in front of his wife and guests. Later, the tech running the show, Levi, is found murdered and Jonathan is the prime suspect. 

Once again, as a favor to her mother, and to Stephen who is recovering from a recent stroke, Presley finds herself hot on the trail of a killer, only she doesn’t need Sarah Winchester to tell her that the closer she gets to the truth, the more danger she puts herself in.     

Presley is a creative, energetic young woman with a wry sense of humor.  She has left the world of academia (after being downsized) and is slowly trying to build her business.  She is very patient with and cares for her mother, enjoying the time she has with her before the Alzheimer’s makes them strangers.  Presley wavers about calling Brad “boyfriend” but then realizes that when she sees him with their new landlord that what she is feeling is jealousy and that she may be ready for the next step – if he still is. 

While Jonathan is not a likable character, it is easy to see why Presley chooses to get involved in Levi’s murder.  In a carefully plotted mystery, she follows all the loose ends of Jonathan’s life, including the recent death of an employee, ruled a suicide, until she realizes just how cut-throat the business of invention technology can be.  Fun party tips are included in the beginning of each chapter encouraging readers to throw their own séance.                                      

--Jennifer Monahan Winberry