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As chief spokesperson for St. Benignus University in small-town Erin, Ohio, Jeff Cody's job responsibilities include handling "crisis communications." And a crisis it is when veteran journalist Maggie Barton calls Jeff on the day after Thanksgiving. She wants the whole story about a dean forced to step down because of complaints of inappropriate behavior from three women who worked for him.But that's just the overture to double murder at SBU, taxing the abilities of larger-than-life amateur sleuth Sebastian McCabe and the police agencies of both town and gown. There are clues aplenty - too many, in fact. But how could the killer have entered the scene of the first murder without showing up on surveillance video? It seems like magic, or a locked room murder in a novel. Fortunately, Mac is a magician of no small ability as well as a mystery writer.This ninth novel (and tenth book) of the McCabe-Cody series marks the debut of Aurelia Banfield, the disarming new assistant chief of St. Benignus University Police, and a farewell to two characters who have been part of the Erin scene from the beginning.

A ghost story becomes a matter of murder."The world is big enough for us," Sherlock Holmes once told Dr. Watson. "No ghosts need apply."But amateur sleuth Sebastian McCabe and his chronicler Jeff Cody don''t have a choice when a popular TV reality show comes to Erin, Ohio, to record a Halloween special about the entity disturbing a local gastropub known as The Speakeasy.Jackie O''Brien was a bootlegger and speakeasy owner gunned down in 1920. Ever since, his unquiet spirit has been said to haunt the building where it happened - one which, after many transformations over the years, is once again a speakeasy of sorts. There may be skeptics, but Erin''s exorcist is not among them. Nor is Sebastian McCabe, who has been up close and personal with the ghost. Both are among those interviewed by Stuart Diamond, specialist in the strange, who has come to town along with Chef Stephen Lipinski and his producer wife to record the episode of the show Dining (Way) Out. What was expected to be some fun publicity for the gastropub turns into a nightmare after someone is shot to death one night in the same place and in the same way as Jackie O''Brien almost exactly 100 years earlier. Police Chief Oscar Hummel recognizes this as Mac''s kind of case, but Mac and Jeff are forced to become virtual sleuths most of the time when the restaurant and many other businesses are shut down because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Before he solves the murder-and a second homicide-Mac makes an embarrassing blunder in one lesser case and scores a great triumph in another. 

Murder Among Supervillains As a professor of popular culture in his day job, amateur sleuth Sebastian McCabe knows a bit about superheroes, supervillains, and the various graphic novel universes. But that's not much help when murder strikes at the Tri-State Comic Book Expo. Potential suspects number in the thousands, including some A-list Hollywood actors as well as comic book professionals and a collector. It all begins with Erin, Ohio-based artist-writer Parker Williams, creator of the superhero Red Falcon, being accused of plagiarizing the character of his newest supervillain, Queen Bee. Mac and best friend Jeff Cody take a special interest because they know Williams from another case. When accuser Gavin Frost-Pierson and Williams both shows up at the Expo, tensions run high. Before long, McCabe and Cody are dealing with murder in an elevator and a dying message that leads to a search for the mysterious woman in red-or perhaps not a woman at all-at an event in which many participants are costumed for cosplay. And in this third year of COVID, some individuals are un-costumed participants still wearing masks as well. Then again, not all masks are obvious. Who has a murderous heart? And what role does a forged comic book cover play? When a suspect flees police after the second murder, Police Chief Oscar Hummel is convinced he has the murderer. Sebastian McCabe is certain his old friend is wrong but has a hard time coming up with an alternative theory.