Dead men tell tales when the right person is asking questions, as private detective and necromancer Merritt Sloan knows all too well. When he's hired to investigate the death of one of the richest patent medicine peddlers in England, he assumes it will be an open and shut case: he was murdered for his money. All Merritt has to do is summon the dead man's spirit and find out who did it. Unfortunately, the spirit is nowhere to be found.

While Ivy Thaddeus didn't enter her marriage for love, she certainly had nothing to do with her husband's death. Her stepson hiring a detective to prove she killed him for his estate is a waste of time and money, not to mention an unneeded distraction to a widow still in mourning.

With personal and professional lines blurring between them, Merritt and Ivy must work together to find out who killed her husband and stole his soul. Because whoever did it isn't finished, and Ivy is next.