Tuesday Mooney Talks to Ghosts

Rarely does a novel so suffused with death radiate as much life as this spirited—in every sense of the word—genre-bending adventure from Racculia (Bellweather Rhapsody). The games begin for volunteer Tuesday Mooney at Boston General Hospital’s annual fund-raising gala when, uncharacteristically, the self-possessed loner finds herself flirting with a handsome guest who introduces himself as Nathaniel Arches, of the Brahmin megabucks clan. Then Vincent Pryce—not the Vincent Price but an eccentric, cape-draped elderly billionaire famed for his love of the macabre—collapses. In his subsequently published self-penned obituary, he invites the city to play an elaborate treasure hunt with clues inspired by his hero, Edgar Allan Poe, for a chunk of his fortune. The challenge galvanizes a host of contestants, including Tuesday, for whom the dark side has held a fascination ever since her childhood in Salem, Mass., and the never-solved disappearance of her best friend, Abby Hobbes. As suspenseful as the adrenaline-pumping race will prove, testing competitors in ways they never anticipated, the author, like Vincent, has a deeper design in mind, which only becomes apparent with the book’s immensely satisfying final bombshells. Racculia should win many new fans with this inspired effort. Agent: Bonnie Nadell, Hill Nadell Literary. (Oct.)