Rituals

Faye Longchamp doesn't believe in ghosts. But she's anarchaeologist-dead people are her life. While working in Rosebower, a rural New York town founded byspiritualists, Faye is surrounded by people who talk to the dead on a regularbasis. When the most influential spiritualist in town, Tilda Armistead, invitesFaye and her project assistant to commune with the dead, she can't say no. An hour later, her crystal ball shows Faye things norational mind can explain. Tilda is dead. The evidence says that someonetrapped Tilda in a small room, nailing its one door shut before setting herVictorian home on fire. There is no possible way for Tilda to have escaped theblaze, let alone drive for miles before finding Faye and dying in her arms. YetTilda did. How? And why?In this bizarre community, Faye finds herself surrounded bypeople who had reason to kill Tilda-her estranged daughter who may be the heirto the Armistead fortune; the daughter's husband, a stage magician with a long historyof making things vanish; a rich developer with dreams of a ghostly Disneylandproject in Rosebower, a project which Tilda fought with her considerablepolitical clout; and the town's holistic doctor whose mysterious herbal potionsare consumed by customers far and wide.As Faye watches the psychics and charlatans jockey forpower, and sends a cry for help to her shrewd husband Joe, Tilda's sister,Myrna, is slowly dying. Will Rosebower reveal its secrets to Faye before moregoes up in flames?