Ghost Fiction

Assembled and edited by Julian Hawthorne and first published in 1907, the Old Time English volume of The Lock and Key Library features ten classic mysteries and ghost stories by Charles Dickens, Edward Bulwer-Lytton, Thomas de Quincey, Charles Robert Maturin, Laurence Sterne, and William Makepeace Thackeray. This volume of The Lock and Key Library is sure to haunt and charm fans of ghost and detective mysteries alike.

It is deep winter, and the darkness is unending. A private detective named Jaycob Eklund has vanished, and Charlie Parker is assigned to track him down. Parker's employer, Edgar Ross, an agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, has his own reasons for wanting Eklund found. Eklund is no ordinary investigator - he is obsessively tracking a series of homicides and disappearances, each linked to reports of hauntings.

Scientist Maryse Robicheaux thought that a lot of her problems had gone away with her mother-in-law's death. The woman was rude, pushy, manipulative and used her considerable wealth to run herd over the entire town of Mudbug, Louisiana. Unfortunately, death doesn't slow down Helena one bit. DEA Agent Luc LeJeune is wondering what his undercover assignment investigating the sexy scientist has gotten him into - especially as it seems someone wants her dead.

The Ladies' Society for the Dead meets once a year. This year, there are eleven ghostly attendees who must work together to pierce the veil between the living and the dead. Each woman has an important message to share if her ghost is ever to find peace. This year, Maude will do everything she can to complete her séance and tell the world who the real axe murderer was on the night of her grisly demise.

There's something spooky going on at the ranch! When Halloween arrives, Hank - the self-appointed Head of Ranch Security - has got his hands full of adventure. First there's a problem with the Tricker Trees. Then the ranch is invaded by two skeletons, a witch, and a pirate. And when Hank goes to investigate a strange sound in the cake house, he's sure it can only be one thing...a ghost. Can Hank rid the ranch of this unwanted visitor? Or is he destined to be spooked for good?

On the night Miles Abernathy—sixteen-year-old socialist and proud West Virginian—comes out as trans to his parents, he sneaks off to a party, carrying evidence that may finally turn the tide of the blood feud plaguing Twist Creek: Photos that prove the county’s Sheriff Davies was responsible for the so-called “accident” that injured his dad, killed others, and crushed their grassroots efforts to unseat him. The feud began a hundred years ago when Miles’s great-great-grandfather, Saint Abernathy, incited a miners’ rebellion that ended with a public execution at the hands of law enforcement.

JC, Happy, and Melody are investigating a haunting at the long-abandoned Haybarn Theater, which is being renovated. But work has been thrown off-schedule by some peculiar and unnatural activities and a homeless man who appears to have been scared to death. After the potentially world-altering recent events of their previous assignment at Chimera House, the team thinks that a haunted theater (aren't they all?) will be a walk in the park.

The eerie Amicus Arcane has returned from beyond the grave to share more spooky stories from inside the Haunted Mansion. What frightening fictions does this once-living librarian hold in store? And will you, foolish listener, be brave enough to listen to them all without going mad...or dying from fright? Join Phineas, Ezra, and Gus - otherwise known as the Hitchhiking Ghosts - as they venture into Amicus Arcane's lonesome library for more terrifying Tales from the Haunted Mansion!

Norfolk is experiencing a July heat wave when a construction crew unearths a macabre discovery - a buried World War II plane with the pilot still inside. Forensic archaeologist Ruth Galloway quickly realizes that the skeleton couldn't possibly be the pilot, and DNA tests identify the man as Fred Blackstock, a local aristocrat who had been reported dead at sea. When the remaining members of the Blackstock family learn about the discovery, they seem strangely frightened by the news.

When Special Agent Jeannette LaFarge is called in to investigate a vineyard in the Reims region of France, the last thing she expects to find is multiple bodies with every vein bled dry. It’s yet another case tailor-made for Blackbird. Joining her is recent recruit Detective Daniel Murray, eager to use his newfound abilities to track down whoever is terrorizing Paris and its surrounding areas. With each ashen victim grows the realization that those responsible weren’t inspired by vampiric creatures of the night but by Elizabeth Báthory herself.

In the wake of a scandal, the Montrose family and their three daughters - Catherine, Lydia and Emeline - flee Boston for their new country home, Willow Hall. The estate seems sleepy and idyllic. But a subtle menace creeps into the atmosphere, remnants of a dark history that call to Lydia, and to the youngest, Emeline. All three daughters will be irrevocably changed by what follows, but none more than Lydia, who must draw on a power she never knew she possessed if she wants to protect those she loves. For Willow Hall’s secrets will rise, in the end....

Local Guild boss and powerful ghost hunter Cooper Boone is everything botanist Elly St. Clair could ask for-the handsome, strong, and silent type. Maybe too silent. For when Guild secrets threaten her career at the college, Elly has to call off their marriage-and leave small-town life behind....

Viola Marek is a struggling real estate agent, and a vampire. But her biggest problem currently is that the house she needs to sell is haunted. The ghost haunting the house has been murdered, and until he can solve the mystery of how he died, he refuses to move on. Fox D’Mora is a medium, and though is also most-definitely a shameless fraud, he isn’t entirely without his uses—seeing as he’s actually the godson of Death.

Magic-wielding Churchwitch and secret addict Chess Putnam knows better than anyone just how high a price people are willing to pay for a chemical rush. But when someone with money to burn and a penchant for black magic starts tampering with Downside’s drug supply, Chess realizes that the unlucky customers are paying with their souls—and taking the innocent with them, as the magic-infused speed compels them to kill in the most gruesome ways possible.

Ezra Friedman sees ghosts, which made growing up in a funeral home complicated. It might have been easier if his grandfather’s ghost didn’t give him scathing looks of disapproval as he went through a second, HRT-induced puberty, or if he didn’t have the pressure of all those relatives—living and dead—judging every choice he makes. It’s no wonder that Ezra runs as far away from the family business as humanly possible. But when the floor of his dream job drops out from under him, Ezra finds himself back in the thick of it.

Darkness lives within.... Cash strapped, working for agencies and living in shared accommodation, Stephanie Booth feels she can fall no further. So when she takes a new room at the right price, she believes her luck has finally turned. But 82 Edgware Road is not what it appears to be.

Life is about to change for Brian Henderson, now that he knows the secrets of Beach Drive. Unbeknownst to Brian and the others, they have brought something else home with them after their misadventure in the forest. The spirit of a mountain man has followed them to Frederickport with a secret of his own.

Lots of activity on Beach Drive, with wedding plans and preparing for the stork's arrival. But it's the new neighbor moving into Pearl's house who has the neighborhood in a deadly uproar.

When social worker Jax receives nine missed calls from her older sister, Lexie, she assumes that it’s just another one of her sister’s episodes. Manic and increasingly out of touch with reality, Lexie’s mental state has pushed Jax away for over a year. But the next day, Lexie is dead: drowned in the pool at their grandmother’s estate. When Jax returns to the house, she learns that Lexie was researching their family’s and the house’s history. And as Jax dives deeper into that research, she discovers that the land holds a far darker history than she could have ever imagined.

A wealthy and depressed man (thanks to the economy, he's not quite rich enough to expand his cache of paintings by Vincent Van Guy, the famed Dutch realist) bound for Christmas in the tropics is abruptly summoned home to North Dakota to visit an ailing aunt. He arrives just in time to be trapped there by a blizzard. The electricity goes out, and when it does, figures from his childhood appear, and historical figures too, for a festive candlelit holiday.