Jacobia Tiptree saved her sanity—and her son, Sam—the day she abandoned Wall Street for the seacoast village of Eastport, Maine. In her new home, a charmingly dialpidated fixer-upper, she looks forward to repairing old radiators and restoring antique shutter for years to come. But Jake's hopes of serenity are dashed when tiny Eastport erupts in a crime wave.
Hometown bad boy Kenny Mumford—old flame of Jake's best fiend and fellow...

"Jacobia Tiptree and her teenage son are used to their Eastport, Maine, home attracting more than its share of houseguests. This year Jake is hoping the plaster dust will keep them away while she finally gets her gem of a fixer-upper into shape from doorknobs and chandeliers to leaky pipes to ghostly phenomena." -- Back cover.

Already hobbled by a nasty tumble off a ladder, Jacobia Tiptree finds her life further complicated by the disappearance of a foul-minded curmudgeon, whose corpse turns up sandwiched between the walls of her cellar.

Jake hires Bella Diamond to keep her house in tip-top shape. But when Bella confides in Jake that she's been receiving death threats, Jake must find out who is frightening the housekeeper, or risk losing her.

Working hard to clean and restore her period Federal-style fixer-upper in Eastport, Maine, Jacobia "Jake" Tiptree stumbles into the middle of a trio of baffling mysteries that may have an all-too-lethal common denominator, involving an old book hidden in her cellar, the appearance of her ex-husband's ghost, and the suicide of a local bad boy.

After more than three decades eluding justice, the man who murdered Jacobia "Jake" Tiptree's mother is finally about to stand trial--until he vanishes into thin air. Jake has a terrible foreboding of where Ozzie Campbell will turn up next. And while the local police chief is sure she's overreacting, the truth is far worse than even Jake's worst fears.

Jacobia "Jake" Tiptree discovers that the past she thought she'd laid to rest comes calling at her lovingly restored 1823 Federal-style house in Eastport, Maine. Back in her days as a hotshot financial manager she did business with plenty of shady characters, but she's still baffled as to the identity of her nemesis--until she receives a photo of a murdered man.

It is nearly midnight when the enormous bell in the belfry of All Faith Chapel -- silent for decades -- peals, startling awake the entire town of Eastport. Upon inspection of the steeple, the police uncover the body of local teenager Karen Hansen, who had climbed the belfry's dark, rickety stairs for a midnight rendezvous. But instead of an exciting new life, Karen met her death. Meanwhile, as an epic nor'easter bears down on the idyllic island town,...