This, and her index-card methodology of organizing clues, will have her tracking down both the mystery of the Trumbull ghost as well as the one residing beneath the store itself. She’s urged by her boyfriend, Detective Pete Mondello, to take an online criminology course, and he charmingly instigates her amateur detective habit by gifting Lee a copy of the Official Nancy Drew Handbook. Lee’s experience in television journalism proves to be as helpful and as fascinating as her burgeoning psychic gifts, especially when it comes to lassoing in her wandering students. Her Aunt Ibby would rather that Lee keep it permanently on the “off” switch, but with encouragement from her cat-maybe-familiar O’Ryan, as well as the witch River North who got the WICH job, Lee tenuously dips into her skills to solve the mystery of the Trumbull ghost. As their first group project, the class plans to film documentary on the Trumbull’s historical origins, including the legendary ghost believed to inhabit its attic.Īfter seeing a vision of her parents’ plane crash when she was a child, Lee turned off her psychic gift to see into the future. Lee soon finds herself in charge of a rather rag-tag group of six students intent on making their mark in television: the daughter of the local tavern owner, its modeling bartender, an oversized cowboy, and undersized ex-jockey, an aspiring witch, and a beautiful and secretive blonde. While the police are unable to explain how Bill Sullivan’s body would find its final resting place on the waterfront, “Tabby’s” director Rupert Pennington is far more concerned that the school open on time. A former department store, the Trumbull renovations are nearly completed when handyman Bill Sullivan disappears right out of the basement on Christmas Day. When that job is eliminated due to some murderous scandals, Lee volunteers as a guest instructor at the new Tabitha Trumbull Academy of the Arts. She loses out on that position, instead becoming a late-night horror-movie psychic host. There is also a link to purchase the book where a portion goes to help support KRL & indie bookstore Mysterious Galaxy.Īfter a less-than-successful career as a television journalist in Florida, Lee Barrett (formerly Maralee Kowalski) returns to her home of Salem, Massachusetts to apply as a newscaster with WICH-TV. Details at the end of this review on how to enter to win a copy of Tails, You Lose.

Tails, You Lose by Carol J. Perry